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1 









































SPIRITUAL PROGRESS 



BY 


/ , . 

J. W. CUMMINGS, D. D., LL. D., 


OF 


ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY. 




NEW YORK: 


P. O’SHEA, 104 BLEECKER STREET. 
1865. 









The Library 
of Congress 

WASHINGTON 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S65, 

By P. O’SHEA, 

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 

'X'lUti, 


C. A. ALVORD, STEREOTYPE!! AND PRINTER. 







PREFACE. 


Tiieke are in use among Catholics nu¬ 
merous hooks containing dogmatical ex¬ 
planations, controversy, and rules for 
attaining Christian perfection. Many of 
them are of the highest order of excel¬ 
lence, being written even by saints. But 
there is a dearth of works, especially in 
English, to explain what such writings 
presuppose and take for granted. There 
are many books written to train up holy 
men and women in the higher grades of 
Prayer, but there are few to teach inqui¬ 
ring Protestants, recent converts, and fer¬ 
vent but uninstructed Catholics how to be 
good, and so how to take the steps that 
must precede being perfect. 

“ Spiritual Progress” is a familiar expo¬ 
sition of Catholic morality, which has for 
its object to tell people of common intelli¬ 
gence what they are expected to do in 
order to be good Christians, and how they 
shall do it, and the results that will follow. 



4 


PREFACE. 


The reader is encouraged to go as far as it 
is his duty, hut warned of the evil effects 
that may ensue if he should go too far and 
set up his own personal views against the 
teachings of the Church. 

The work is suggestive, for its. object is 
to induce people to think. Whenever it 
has fairly presented a subject, it leaves it 
in its freshness and seeks not to exhaust it. 
It gives the results of much study and 
long years of observation, but spares the 
reader cumulative proof, and the reference, 
text, or quotation, which may be called 
the author’s legal warrant for what he 
says. The subjects treated, and the style 
of their treatment, place this work among 
that class of easy instructions on the prac¬ 
tical working of our Religion, which, given 
by the living voice, are common among us, 
but which are not easily procured in print. 
The chief object in view is to do away with 
vague and uncertain notions of what is 
right and what is wrong on the subjects 
treated of, and to encourage people to take 
more pleasure in reflecting upon their re¬ 
ligion. 


CONTENTS 


PAG® 

Preface . 3 

Chapter I. —Character. 9 

IE. —Faith. 13 

III. —Lively Faith. 18 

IY.—The Fellowship op Faith . . .23 

V.—Conscience.28 

VI. —Nature and Grace . . . .32 

VII. —Prayer and Work . . . . 31 

VUE. —Devotion .... .41 

IX. —Providence. 46 

X. —Fear op God. 61 

XI. —Human Respect . . . . 66 




6 ' CONTENTS. 

Chapter pagb 

XII. —Obedience.60 

XIII. —Human Suffering .... 64 

XIV. —Mortification.*70 

XV. —Regret and Repentance . . 74 

XVI.—Temptation.78 

XVII. — Good Resolutions . . . . 81 

XVIII. —Discouragement. 86 

XIX. —Energy. 92 

XX.—Schooling of the Imagination . . 98 

XXI.—Pride and Humility . . .3 05 


XXII. —Vanity. Ill 

XXIII. —Modesty .. 116 

XXIV. —Prejudice. 120 

XXV. —Social Interchange . . . . 125 

XXVI. —Faults of Conversation . . . 130 

XXVII. —Tests of Character . . . 137 

XXVIII.— Truth-. 146 


CONTENTS. 7 

Chapter pack 

XXIX.—The Mission op Laymen . . . 153 

XXX.—Religious Progress .... 161 

XXXI.—Difficulties op Laymen . . .166 

XXXII.—Religious Maturity . . . . It3 

XXXIII.—Yalue op a Soul . . . . 181 

XXXIY.—Religion Outside the Church . . 186 

XXXV . —True Piety.191 

XXX YI.—Self-command.197 

XXXYII.—Enemies.203 

XXXYIII.—Temper.209 

XXXIX.—The Ruling Passion . . . . 215 

XL.—The Sin op Omission .... 220 

XLI.—Limits of Thought . . . . 226 

XLII.—Limits op Action.233 

XLIII.—Books.238 

XLIY.—Education . .... 244 

XLY.—Laws of Health . . . 252 


8 


CONTENTS 


Chapter page 

XLYI.— Conservatism and Progress . . 258 

XLVI1.— Amusements. 264 

XLVIII.— Active Life. 268 

XLIX.— Domestic Education . . . . 274 

L.— Domestic Education— Continued . . 287 

LI.— Domestic Education— Continued . 306 

LII. —Time and Eternity . . . .326 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER I. 

CHARACTER. 

No two leaves in the forest are exactly 
the same in form and textnre. No two 
grains of sand from the sea-shore or the 
great African desert are identical in bulk 
and outline. Even the two drops of water 
most alike in the universe will exhibit 
some marks of distinction when submitted 
to a powerful microscope. 

The law that excludes duplicates from 
the visible kingdoms of nature, is also a 
law of the moral world. From Adam to 
the last man, no two faces will be found 
exactly the same; and variety in trait and 



10 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


lineament of human character is as inex¬ 
haustible as in man’s outward appearance. 
The power which in one man’s moral com¬ 
position is ardent, demonstrative, predomi¬ 
nant, in another lies dormant or dead. The 
craving which in one breast concentrates 
upon itself the whole mind and will, before 
its voice can be silenced or its yearnings 
appeased, is never felt, scarcely understood, 
by a being of a different organization. The 
weakness of the weak man is laughed at in 
scorn by the strength of the strong ; moral 
pulp and steel travel side by side, and 
souls of fine porcelain and delicate crystal 
tremble in the near presence of iron and 
granite. 

This endless variety in beings so much 
alike gives rise to endless variety of wants. 
The religious truth that would deal with 
these wants so as to satisfy each and all, 
must be universal. All religious teaching 
that is narrow and contracted; all that is 
not world-embracing; all that is fitted only 


CHARACTER. 


11 


for special classes, is proven at once not to 
be the word of God. When God made 
man’s nature, He made it with all the varie¬ 
ty of wants above described. When He 
made religion, He knew it would have to 
meet and satisfy all these wants, and He 
fitted it to meet and satisfy them. 

Every man who is saved has to be re¬ 
deemed, but the work of redemption is not 
exactly the same in any two subjects on 
whom the truth exerts its beneficent influ¬ 
ence. 

Let us not, then, attempt to condemn 
one another lightly and without due reflec¬ 
tion. I must insist that my Catholic 
neighbor shall live and die for Catholic 
truth. He, too, must admit that without 
some external forms, his piety and devotion 
will not be practical and active. But we 
will do well not to insist upon imposing 
the special practices that we severally pre¬ 
fer one upon the other, provided we are 
both sound in the substance of the faith. 


12 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Every good tiling has its usefulness, but 
■uncharitable and unwise censure is not 
good, and has no recognized place in the 
Catholic Church. 


FAIT11. 


13 


CHAPTER II. *\ 

FAITH. 

There is a great difference in the nature 
of people’s faith. One person is hard and 
slow in believing, and seemingly fears that 
he may believe too much; another is im¬ 
pressible and credulous, as though he 
were in constant danger of not believing 
enough. One is exceedingly difficult to 
convince, and yields up the field of his 
thoughts grudgingly, inch by inch, only 
when he cannot help himself: while the 
other proceeds on the principle that you 
cannot have too much of a good thing, and 
is willing not only to give a ready assent 
to matters not easily understood, but even 
to give. it without inquiring into the rea¬ 
sons. One will believe nothing that ex¬ 
tends beyond the ken of his eye, the 


14 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


stretch of his hand, or the grasp of his in¬ 
telligence ; another exercises, in religions 
matters, the faculty of the marvellous, and 
takes ii^ legends, and stories of miracles, 
and statements of the temporal efficiency 
and success of his creed, even in contra¬ 
diction to the principles of the creed itself. 
One party makes of every dream a vision 
of light, the other reduces every vision of 
light to a dream. One does not go far 
enough forward, the other overleaps the 
bounds of rational judgment, and goes too 
far to be safe. 

There are two elements in the conviction 
to which we give utterance when we make 
what is called an act of faith: a human and 
a divine element. The human element is 
the assent of the mind expressed by the 
words, I believe, and the divine is the grace 
of God, enabling us to receive His revela¬ 
tions as true on the authority of His infalli¬ 
ble Word. The two classes of persons we 
have described fail in making a full and 


FAITH. 


15 


true act of faith, the former because they 
want to make it all rational, all human, all 
rising from below, and thus exclude the 
divine element; the latter because, from a 
mistaken respect for revelation, they wish 
to make the act all supernatural, all divine, 
all coming from above, and thus exclude 
the human element. A true act of faith is 
the act of man, and must always be the 
product of man’s intelligence and will, and 
therefore, a human act. 

You need not feel uneasy if your reli¬ 
gious conviction does not crush you down 
with the inevitable weight of a mathemati¬ 
cal proposition. Mathematical proposi¬ 
tions do not depend for their integrity, on 
your moral nature, but your act of faith 
does, and it is therefore apt to grow faint 
and pale at certain times, like the burning 
light which is used as its emblem, while 
at other times, it strengthens in warmth 
and brilliancy, and shines afar with a 
vigorous and steady flame. You may be 


16 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


tempted to doubt, or to grow weak in the 
faith, but fear nothing—for the bolder the 
assault the greater will be the opportunity 
afforded you to gain merit before G-od by 
a brave and persistent defence. Faith will 
do its office for you in this pilgrimage, 
leading you on to the realm of light where 
your motive for conviction will be no 
longer the fact that you are told the truth 
by the voice of God, but the knowledge 
which God will give you when you come 
to be enlightened with the glory of His 
Divine Countenance beaming love and joy 
upon you forever. 

It is our duty to strengthen the two ele¬ 
ments of faith while we are in this life. 
We can strengthen the human element by 
impressing more and more clearly and dis¬ 
tinctly upon our intelligence the truths of 
religion, by bringing our emotions and 
affections more and more under the control 
of religious principle, and by carefully 
guarding against the damages which arise 


FAITH. 


17 


from the commission of sin. We can 
strengthen the grace of God within us by 
being faithful to what light and strength 
we have already received, and by prayer 
that God in His goodness may give us fur¬ 
ther grants of grace, making us still more 
pure and worthy in His sight. Harmony 
between human energy and the grace of 
God leads one to perform repeated acts of 
faith, and we form what is called the habit 
of faith, so that our life comes by degrees 
to be governed readily and sweetly by the 
truths and principles of revealed religion. 

2 


18 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER III. 

LIVELY FAITH. 

It is not an arduous task to acquire 
faith. It is done easily when, guided by 
the assistance of God, we turn our faculties 
to right use, seeking for that which is more 
precious than any science, the knowledge 
of God, who fails not to reveal himself to 
the honest and earnest seeker. More se¬ 
rious work is required to make and keep 
our faith what it ought to be, namely, a 
steady light within us, giving brightness, 
heat, and vigor to our whole spiritual life; 
feeding it as its source and centre, and 
holding under discipline all the activity of 
our outward life. 

The unreplenished and untrimmed lamp, 
in which the oil is allowed to be con¬ 
sumed, the flame untidy and uncared for, 


LIVELY FAITH. 


19 


is next to useless, and is in danger of 
speedily becoming so altogether. 

A faith which is merely an old habit, 
but which shows no signs of activity; a 
faith which is confused and gross for want 
of power and sufficient instruction ; a faith 
which is languid and puny, so that we 
hardly ever think of it, or if at all, only in 
a careless manner, as though it were no 
concern of ours, is not sufficient to save us. 
There is work to be done to save a soul, 
and such a faith is too weak to do this 
work. It has not strength and heat enough 
to fill and flood our veins with the life¬ 
blood of spiritual vitality. Now, whose 
faith, let us ask, is of this dead-and-alive 
nature ? The faith of all who are merely 
religious by custom and on the surface, 
and who do not nourish and strengthen 
their faith, guarding it as they would any 
other virtue, against exposure and tempta¬ 
tion. 

There are reasons enough in God why 


20 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


our faith, should he infinite in its beauty 
and glory, because there is in God infinite 
truth ; but at the same time we possess no 
infinite capacity to liaye and to hold infi¬ 
nite faith, but there are in our nature 
meannesses and weaknesses enough to ex¬ 
plain how our faith may grow pale and 
faint, and at length wither and die out 
altogether. 

Faith is the health of the spiritual man. 
It must, by his co-operation with the grace 
of God, be kept strong, holding his intel¬ 
lect in subjection to the First and Eternal 
Truth. It must be enlightened, to supply 
man with knowledge of the mysteries of 
God, their bearing and consequences. It 
must, moreover, be deep-seated and fruit¬ 
ful, as it is the root of all the virtuous in¬ 
terests and actions in which the whole man 
or his separate faculties are engaged. The 
faith that does not cause the heart of man 
to bloom with the flowers and plants of 
Christian virtue, giving them moisture and 


LIVELY FAITH. 


21 


heat to develop their growth, is of no more 
use to the soul than rain and sunshine rep¬ 
resented to the eye Iby a painter’s art 
would he to a garden or an orchard. 

He who makes a full act of Faith cannot 
help making an act of Charity. The faith 
we speak of here, is not purely intellectual 
nor speculative; it is a practical, earnest 
faith, that cannot help going to work in 
favor of the cause it embraces. This faith 
is not only the assent of the mind that be¬ 
lieves, but is, at the same time, the move¬ 
ment of the will that anxiously wants to 
believe. It is the light of the understand¬ 
ing, discovering and recognizing the truth 
held out to it by the Almighty; and it is 
the grasp of the will, reaching, embracing, 
and folding to its heart of hearts the bright 
heavenly gift, which thus becomes our 
property. 

He who represses his passions, and mar¬ 
shals all his faculties into subjection to 
religious principle, is comparatively free 


22 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


from outbreaks of the lower and rebellions 
powers of human nature. He possesses 
the faith, and the faith possesses him. A 
new energy burns and spreads in his spirit, 
enabling him to perform with unwonted 
ease, wondrous deeds of self-sacrihce in 
the service of God and of his fellow-men. 


TIIE FELLOWSHIP OF FAITH. 


23 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE FELLOWSHIP OF FAITH. 

A soldier who marches into action with 
a solid phalanx of comrades around him, 
experiences very different sensations from 
the lonely picket, who stands guard at the 
silent outlet of a wood, or under the crest 
of a rock in the wilderness. The first is 
energized and fired by the power of a 
whole legion, of which he is part, while 
the second has but a solitary will and one 
right arm to depend upon in case of a dan¬ 
ger which may break upon him from any 
quarter at a moment’s warning. 

The inventor, the discoverer, the leader 
of his age, the man of great heart and pow¬ 
erful mind, are nearly always condemned 
to the complete isolation of the solitary 
vidette. Genius must outstrip the multi- 


24 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


tude in its rapid forward strides; it soon 
leaves far behind the common public; 
passes one by one, the few who herd not 
with the crowd; and, at iength, being 
alone, it finds that in leaving behind the 
ignorance of mankind, it has also left its 
sympathy. To have genius is to be alone. 

He who founded true Religion, gave to 
it the form of a family in which He is the 
Father, and all mankind are brothers and 
sisters. Their prayer was never selfish, 
for it was addressed to “Our Father” in 
common by all, and he who did not lov¬ 
ingly aid the neighbor whom he saw in 
need, was pronounced to be no lover of 
God, whom he could not see. Whatever 
act of devotion to God, or charity towards 
our fellow-man is done by one of us forms 
part of the general fund of merit and be¬ 
longs to all. Whatever is done, under 
God’s favor, by the faith and zeal of all 
members throughout the world; belongs 
to each individual soul as much as his own 


THE FELLOWSHIP OF FAITH. 


25 


private virtuous acts and their reward. 
Each prays for all, and all pray for each 
other. 

There are continuous streams of wisdom 
and goodness which God pours forth into 
the mind and heart of his Church; all 
these, too, belong to each of her children. 
They are new grants of light and strength 
to enable each one to persevere bravely in 
the performance of his duty, and to resist 
all attempts on the part of his enemies to 
drive him or entice him into the commis¬ 
sion of evil. No friend can benefit the 
Church without conferring a blessing on 
every soul she is engaged in saving, and 
no one can attempt the injury of a single 
soul without having arrayed against him, 
the whole power of the divine kingdom, of 
which God Himself is the Founder and the 
King. 

Let us love to meet together in the place 
consecrated to public worship, there to 
join in the Prayer of Faith with our breth- 


26 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ren. In that holy place, we feel that there 
is a fellowship binding ns together as one 
family, and we grow stronger as we reflect 
upon the truth that no child of God is ever 
left to struggle unfriended and alone. 
Whether temptation rushes upon the soul 
during the glare and noise of daily war¬ 
fare, or whether it creeps stealthily toward 
its intended victim during the dark and 
silent hours of the night, the great heart 
of the Church beats with maternal anxiety 
for each of her children; her voice rises 
unceasingly in supplication to God that 
the sufferer may be saved from all diffi¬ 
culty and danger. 

Good angels glide from earth to heaven, 
offering the earthly prayers that flower up 
from the heart of humanity under the 
patient cultivation of Religion. They are 
welcomed, blessed, and wrought with 
wondrous skill into the wreaths that adorn 
that ladder between the earth and the sky 
which gladdened the vision of the slum- 


THE FELLOWSHIP OF FAITH. 


27 


bering Prophet of old. The summit of 
that ladder leads to the Eternal Throne 
itself, and its foot is planted by the side of 
whatever mortal is in need of strength to 
come out victorious from strife with his 
spiritual enemies. 

The consequence of this teaching is, that 
even the humblest believer has it in his 
power to put in motion the whole machin¬ 
ery of the Church in his own behalf, to 
move heaven and interest all the powers 
thereof in his defence. His prayer, if 
made with true faith, becomes infallible in 
its effects, like that prayer which stilled 
the winds and the sea, released mankind 
from every sort of ailment and suffering, 
and even called forth from the cold em¬ 
brace of the tomb the form of the friend 
and follower of the Blessed Messiah. 


28 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER V. 

CONSCIENCE. 

Conscience is aptly styled the inward 
monitor. Its office is similar to that of a 
friend who should outwardly call atten¬ 
tion to the right and the wrong of our 
doings, with wisdom and authority. 

We may not he able to determine 
whether Conscience is a special faculty or 
power within us, or simply reason point¬ 
ing out the lawfulness or unlawfulness of 
what we are doing. Each one, neverthe¬ 
less, has heard the monitor within, the still 
small voice distinctly approving or con¬ 
demning his actions or affections. This 
voice speaks before we act in the wrong, 
warning us that we are under a strict 
moral obligation to avoid the evil deed to¬ 
wards which we are* hurriedly drawn on ; 


CONSCIENCE. 


29 


it speaks while we are acting, clearly telb 
ing us that we are doing a wicked action, 
and it speaks after the deed is done, up¬ 
braiding us with our unfaithful behavior, 
and punishing us with the stings of Re¬ 
morse. 

The conscientious faculty may be edu¬ 
cated and refined like other faculties of the 
mind and heart; its perceptions may be 
quickened, and its dictates made clear and 
bright. It may also become dull and slow, 
fulfilling its functions in a sluggish and 
ineffectual manner. The ear of a woods¬ 
man, and the eye of a mariner become 
wonderfully quick by constant practice 
and attention, detecting sights and sounds 
with readiness and certainty which are 
imperceptible to the unpractised and un¬ 
trained dwellers in cities. In like manner 
the inward moral sense is improved and 
strengthened by proper training ; it learns 
to descry evil afar off, and give timely 
warning of the approach of moral danger. 


30 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


It is no less certain that conscience is 
shaped and guided by the character of its 
possessor. Those who are ardent and 
bold in other things, will be the same in 
adopting a course of conduct, or in form¬ 
ing an attachment, while the timid and 
slow will waver in doubt, and only form a 
practical judgment perhaps, when the 
time for action has gone by. 

The study of our own nature, and of the 
various wants which belong to it, shows 
us in this instance, as in numberless others, 
the wisdom and goodness of the Author of 
our Religion. Conscience is not left to 
grope in the dark after principles of right 
and wrong, and to act in painful doubt 
and uncertainty under the guidance of 
mere opinion. The revelations of faith 
strengthen and confirm the dictates of good 
with which the natural law supplies it; 
they carry forward and expand man’s lim¬ 
ited knowledge, and end by giving him 
fixed principles to guide him so that he 


CONSCIENCE. 


31 


may in action embrace the right and ayoid 
the wrong. 

The living voice of the Church affords 
direction to the uncertain and timid con¬ 
science ; confirms the resolute and strong in 
well-doing ; heals the effects'of wayward¬ 
ness in the past, and leads on the soul in 
peaceful ways to the tasks and the rewards 
of the untried future. 


32 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER VI. 

NATURE AND GRACE. 

Grace is not the result of good works, 
but good works are the result of grace. 
Even the first correct thought, the earliest 
yearning, the most faintly dawning desire 
in the way of eternal salvation, are less re¬ 
mote in the history of the soul’s life, than 
that impulse from above which preceded 
every effectual tendency towards virtue 
and the love of God. The Divine Spirit 
lives before the human spirit which is its 
offspring, and the work of God is older 
than the work of man. We cannot serve 
God and fulfil his law by our own power, 
and we cannot of ourselves deserve the 
assistance which is indispensable that we 
may serve and obey him. Such assistance 
is a free gift of God, not granted in virtue 


NATURE AND GRACE. 


33 


of any obligation on the part of the giver, 
nor yet in virtue of any rightful claim on 
the part of the receiver. 

A clear and practical notion of what the 
grace of God really is, will materially aid 
us in our study of the science of salvation. 
What then is Grace? It is light which 
God gives to the intelligence of man that 
he may know what is true, and strength 
which God gives the will of man that he 
may do what is right. This light and 
strength assist the mind in its progress to¬ 
wards truth and justice, but they do not 
force it onward. The strong hand of a 
father leads forward the little child whom 
he would teach to walk, bears him up and 
supports him, but the child walks of his 
own accord, lie is not dragged on in spite 
of himself. The grace of God, St. Augustine 
tells us, is the inspiration of love. In two 
words he describes the elements of which 
practical and effectual grace is composed; 
namely, the impulse and motive coming 
3 


34 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


down from God to the soul, and the full 
and free response of the soul rising joyfully 
towards God. 

Now when the impulse from above loses 
its novelty it becomes an abiding influence, 
a settled habit, a controlling power in the 
interior life, rendering man uniformly de¬ 
sirous of acting for the best, and so forming 
him gradually into a just and holy person 
acceptable to his God, who recognizes in 
him an adopted son and an heir of the 
kingdom of heaven. 

* It was to merit this heavenly treasure for 
man and bring it within his reach, that the 
Son of God came upon earth and assumed 
the form and features of the sinful race 
which He came to save. What He, the 
true Son of the Most High, claims in virtue 
of His birthright, we claim in virtue of our 
adoption as children of God, in virtue of 
the merits of our Redeemer, and of the 
kind promises of our merciful and loving 
Father in heaven. 


NATURE AND GRACE. 


35 


God who is the Giver of Grace is also the 
Author of Nature. The supernatural im¬ 
pulses with which He inspires the soul do 
not destroy any of the powers with which 
He endowed it, do not uproot or alter 
any of its faculties, do not extinguish any 
of its inherent affections or emotions. 
These powers, faculties, and affections are 
the materials which Divine Grace uses as 
the groundwork of its operations. Grace 
refines, elevates, and perfects them, hut 
does not war against them. They are sup¬ 
plied with impulses more noble than mere¬ 
ly natural motives of action can supply, 
they are assisted and supported by strength 
far superior to that of the powers of nature 
alone, they are led to work for a final pur¬ 
pose infinitely above any object that nature 
can propose as the reward of their exer¬ 
tions. But it is true, nevertheless, that 
Grace does not take them away, nor does 
the influence of Grace ever affect them so 
far that they cease to be purely energies of 



36 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


human nature. The God of Grace and of 
Nature is the same God ; both are good in 
their sphere, and both give honor and 
glory in their own way to their common 
Lord and Preserver. 




PRAYER AND WORK. 


37 


\ CHAPTER VII. 

PRAYER AND WORK. 

When the soul prays she rises and 
adores ; she rises to the Divine presence, 
and adores the infinite goodness and ma¬ 
jesty of the Divinity. In its full and per¬ 
fect sense, prayer can be addressed to no 
being unless to God, because there is no 
perfect prayer without adoration, and 
adoration can be given to God alone. 
Prayers to the saints, prayers in the pres¬ 
ence of holy images that remind us of holy 
things, prayers whispered with the lips, 
prayers sung with the voice or read with 
the eyes, and all such pious actions are 
only preparatory steps, useful because they 
help us to reach mental prayer, which 
alone is prayer complete and perfect. 

It is not a difficult performance to think 


38 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


lovingly of God who has been so good to 
us, yet whenever we welcome a thought 
that reminds us of God, when we are glad¬ 
dened by an emotion that draws us nearer 
to Him—we have prayed. How simple a 
thing then, and again how sublime a thing 
is prayer! It may be awakened in the 
soul by a flower, by the song of a bird, by 
a rosy cloud or a whispering breeze, by 
the touching plaint of an instrument, the 
devotional air of a chapel, or the sight of a 
face pure and pious in its beauty, and yet 
from such humble beginnings it may lift 
up the spirit to the foot of the Divine 
throne, and lap it in the ecstasy of heaven¬ 
ly love. It has its origin in simple remem¬ 
brance and its end in seraphic adoration. 

Take courage, therefore, and be of great 
heart, 0 ye workers, who pass your lives, 
not in the pleasant shade of the sanctuary, 
but out in the sunny and dusty ways of 
the busy world ! The great official act of 
prayer is the turning of the mind and heart 


PRAYER AND WORK. 


89 


to God. Outward things need not prevent 
the mind from rising and adoring. Out¬ 
ward occupation attended to for Him will 
even assist and not be in the way. Hot 
the whisperings of the tongue only, but 
the working of the hands as well, may 
dispose you for mental prayer. For if 
you do your work in a proper spirit it 
will remind you of God, and this prompt¬ 
ing is the beginning of prayer. 

Those who pray must mean to pray with 
proper feeling ; they must wish to be hum¬ 
ble, trustful, and persevering in their 
piety. Let the worker apply himself to 
his appointed task, to the duties of his 
condition in life with similar dispositions. 
Let him remember that he is working by 
God’s appointment, and for God’s sake. 
Let him do his work in no selfish or world¬ 
ly manner, but in a pious, humble, trust¬ 
ful, and persevering spirit, and he will 
find that prayer unbidden will mingle with 
his work; that the spirit of prayer will 



40 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


sanctify his engagements, his labors, and 
his trials. His work will become prayer. 
It will be recognized as the result of sancti¬ 
fying grace, and worthy to be rewarded 
by the great Master of the household. 


DEVOTION. 


41 


CHAPTER VIII. 

DEVOTION. 

„ There are souls of a stern and resolute 
nature, who lean firmly upon positive 
facts, reason themselves unrelentingly into 
the performance of duty, and cut their 
way through all the entanglements of na¬ 
ture by dint of pure logic, as the wood¬ 
man cuts his way through the underbrush 
of the forest by the edge of his hunting- 
knife. 

There are other souls who yearn for 
sympathy; look at things first through 
imagination, and then through reason; 
who love to pick their way along in a 
dainty, slow, irresolute manner, putting 
aside the branches that cross their path, 
and pausing to gaze on every flowery 
bank and purling brook, and mossy seat, 


42 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


they happen to pass in the journey to¬ 
wards the sunlit plains which lie far be¬ 
yond the shadow and silence of the wood¬ 
land. 

Both of these classes can become devoted 
servants of their heavenly Master, and 
there is room for both in the final home. , 
Justice and Prudence, however, have 
some words of advice to bestow upon 
each. 

The softer soul—gentle and amiable from 
its very weakness—is apt to allow the ex¬ 
ternal practices of devotion to usurp all 
her attention, and win her attachment, for¬ 
getting that they are not the end to be 
striven for, but only means towards the 
attainment of that end. It is a good and 
holy custom to pray to the Virgin Mother, 
to the Angels, to the Apostles, the Mar¬ 
tyrs, the Confessors, and the Virgins, and 
to ask their intercession. But the weak 
sister must be admonished that the best 
way to honor the Saints and Servants of 


DEVOTION. 


43 


God, is not to confine one’s self to singing 
hymns in their praise. It is necessary, in 
addition, to put into practice the faith, 
charity, purity, constancy, humility, gen¬ 
erosity, courage, and self-sacrifice of which 
they left us such glorious examples. 

The best kind of prayer is that which is 
addressed to God. In the solemn Sacrifice 
of the Mass all the prayers are addressed 
to God the Father, God the Son, or God 
the Holy Ghost, or to the Ever-Blessed 
Trinity, One God. The Mother of Our 
Lord and His Servants and Saints are com¬ 
memorated, hut no favor is implored or 
expected, unless through Jesus Christ Our 
Lord and Saviour, who with the Father 
and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth 
One God, world without end. 

Christian Religion means the love and 
service of Jesus Christ, and the communion 
of Saints is a means towards attaining this 
indispensable love which alone can save our 
souls. Let the preacher, then, preach Christ 


44 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


and Him Crucified as did Paul tlie Apostle, 
and let the faithful believer and adorer 
reckon upon no practice of devotion, no 
intercession or commemoration that does 
not place the Divine Redeemer, the lover 
of pure souls, prominently before the eyes 
of His followers. 

But what of the man of principle and 
duty, the possessor of strong common 
sense, the healthy and hardy human na¬ 
ture whom God assists with graces trench¬ 
ant and electric, suited to his own high- 
toned and unbending disposition ? He 
must learn to let his more gentle brother 
have his own way. He may look upon 
certain practices of outward devotion as 
mere food for babes, and not strong meat 
for men. So far he is right in choosing for 
himself, but if he shows contempt and in¬ 
tolerance for his neighbor he is wrong—he 
sins. Let him choose what is good for his 
own use in all freedom, but let him leave 
to others the same liberty of choosing their 


DEVOTION. 45 

own means to reach the end which is the 
common object of all. 

The emotional and imaginative ones 
must not put forward their pet virtue, or 
their pet devotion, as a substitute for all 
religion, and a certain cure for all moral 
evils, and the hard-headed thinker must 
not despise those who cannot open them¬ 
selves a way by the keen edge of pure rea¬ 
son, but are obliged to consult the cravings 
of a nature, perhaps narrower, perhaps 
broader, than his own. 



46 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER IX. 

PROVIDENCE. 

We are lost in wonder when we contem¬ 
plate the power of God, the Creator of all 
the bright and beautiful worlds that roll 
around us in the immensity of space ; and 
we less frequently pause to remember that 
the same power is put forth at every in¬ 
stant of time by Divine Providence to pre¬ 
serve the universe which He created. His 
wise foresight and His loving care are re¬ 
quired for the preservation of each and 
every object in the world, however great 
or small it may be, from the flaming planet 
in the blue depths above down to the little 
pebble at the bottom of the rivulet, and 
the grain of sand in the plain of the desert, 
or on the shore of the ocean. 

The plan according to which this world 


PROVIDENCE. 


47 


is governed was approved and adopted by 
Divine Wisdom, at the very beginning of 
time. This plan was a full and complete 
system, not making every thing perfect in 
itself, nor even the best that was possible 
under the circumstances, but ordering each 
thing wisely and well, as a means towards 
the end for which all things were made. 
Such is the idea of the general Providence 
of God. 

But very often our view of Providence 
loses sight of the general order and har¬ 
mony to which all things will converge in 
the end. We ask in our prayers for a spe¬ 
cial arrangement which may suit our own 
peculiar conditions, and when we fail to 
obtain this we complain, perhaps, that 
Providence has forgotten us, and lost sight 
of our case altogether. Our petitions im¬ 
ply a wish that God would not govern the 
world and the things therein according to a 
code doing justice to all, but that He would 
work a series of miracles suspending the 



48 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


laws He has made, and causing all the 
world to stop, like the Sun at the kidding 
of Josue, that we may he served and have 
onr necessities, real or imaginary, consulted 
to onr own satisfaction. 

We are informed, more or less, of the 
laws of health, of social contentment and 
domestic economy, and yet, when we wan¬ 
tonly break them, we wish the Lord to in¬ 
terpose and free ns by special Providential 
arrangement from the consequences of onr 
obstinacy and folly. 

The prayers which we offer in such 
cases do ns some good, no doubt, but they 
benefit ns by obtaining for ns some grace 
or favor entirely different from what we 
have sought to secure. 

The world would surely fall into a state 
of great confusion were our prayers to be 
heard as we frame them. For so capri¬ 
cious and changeable are we, that what we 
ask for as a great blessing to-day, we 
should look upon as a heavy infliction to- 


PROVIDENCE. 


49 


morrow ; ana what we consider in the 
morning as a severe punishment, we find 
out before night to have been only a heav¬ 
enly favor disguised as an earthly trial. 
Would it not be wise so to engage in 
prayer that it may lead us to trust our 
welfare to God, who orders all things for 
the best, and seek to bring our will into a 
state of uniformity with His will, and 
resignation to His all-wise decrees? The 
sober and ripe Christian mind will placidly 
admit that it is indeed the wiser and better 
course to conform ourselves to the will of 
God, rather than worry and fret because 
He will not conform His will to ours. 

Let no just assertion of the supremacy of 
general Providence discourage the faithful 
believer. Without working a miracle, 
God may grant in many cases the favor we 
ask. A .physician may be enabled to 
think of the remedy that will cure his 
patient, a confessor may be assisted in 
counselling the course that will prevent 
4 


50 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


great grief and save his penitent from suf¬ 
fering and sin, and a moral maxim, seem¬ 
ingly obvious and simple in its character, 
being suggested at the right moment, may 
bring about consequences as important as 
a miracle would be in the physical order. 

Our heavenly Father is always able and 
willing to help us: we are never wrong 
when we pray to Him, but we are often 
egregiously wrong when we attempt to 
set limits to His action, or to control the 
ways of His inscrutable wisdom and 
power. 


FEAR OF GOD. 


51 


CHAPTER X. 

FEAR OF GOD. 

There is a fear of the Lord which leads 
ns to revere and love Him as children love 
and revere an honored and noble father, 
and there is a fear which makes ns feel 
towards Him as slaves feel towards a 
powerful bnt nnkind master, or as a dog 
feels in the presence of a harsh and crnel 
owner. Child-like fear of the Lord is the 
beginning of wisdom, and slavish fear is 
the beginning of folly. 

There is a test by which the true quality 
of the fear of God may be detected, and its 
true nature known. The fear which does 
not exclude confidence, but which allows 
us to rely upon God precisely because His 
power and majesty are so great, is a useful 
and a wholesome fear. It draws us nearer 


} 


52 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


to God. The fear which produces in the 
heart a morbid terror of Divine vengeance, 
which chills our trust in Him, and in¬ 
clines us to look upon His power as natu¬ 
rally unfriendly and exacting, is a false 
and an injurious fear. It leads us away 
from God. 

The fear is not a wise one which makes 
a Christian resort to every excuse, and 
make every effort in his power, that he 
may avoid approaching the sacraments, al¬ 
though the counsels of a good director urge 
him to receive them with humble hope and 
confiding simplicity of heart. We do God 
no honor when we flee from His presence 
as if he were a dangerous and vindictive 
enemy in place of being a loving and mer¬ 
ciful Father. When He is pleased to hold 
forth to us the proffer of mercy and for¬ 
giveness, we are ungrateful and unjust if 
we turn away frightened at His advance, 
as though He could only draw near us to 
smite us with unrelenting severity. He 


FEAR OF GOD. 


53 


who made ns, fully understands our weak¬ 
ness and our inconstancy, and we render 
Him a much more acceptable service when 
we allow His mercy to lift us up and 
strengthen us, than when we compel His 
justice, in our hardness of heart, to punish 
and cast us down. 

It frequently happens that nurses, ser¬ 
vants, and sometimes ignorant instructors, 
excite and foster in the minds of young 
children a superstitious dread of God, that 
has an injurious effect on them during their 
whole lifetime, for early impressions are 
stronger than education and experience in 
commonplace minds. A child is threatened 
in a moment of impatience with punish¬ 
ment sudden and swift, even with an awful 
and violent death, if it dares to lie or steal 
or disobey. As he begins to reflect, he 
thinks that such heavy punishment would 
be uncalled for and unfair, and thus starts 
in life with a half-formed impression that 
God is not as just, or, at least, not as for- 


54 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


giving and patient as a good man, a good 
woman, or even'a good child. 

It would he far better to teach the child 
always to think of God as a gentle and 
kind Father, to point out the proofs of His 
loving care in the beauties of nature, and 
in the comforts and conveniences of social 
and domestic life, so that every fair #hd 
cherished object would remind the young 
beginner in life of the goodness of Him by 
whom all things were created. Let the 
earliest lessons of religion impress strong¬ 
ly upon the unbiased heart of youth the 
maxim that God is always merciful and 
beneficent to the good, and then it will be 
time enough to explain without harshness, 
exaggeration, or superstitious terrors, that 
He is also the upright judge of the wicked 
and ungrateful. 

When religion is made to assume a ter¬ 
rific and threatening aspect, the excuse is 
made, that it is only for the purpose of 
frightening the listener into good behavior. 


/ 


FEAK OF GOD. 


55 


We might adopt this system if it were not 
inconsistent with truth, and if experience 
did not teach us that men are generally 
made neither wiser nor worthier by being 
frightened. There is only one kind of fear 
that makes better men and better Christians 
of us, and that is the fear of sin because it 
offends God, who is deserving of all the 
love of every heart which He has created. 


56 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XI. 

HUMAN RESPECT. 

It is a severe trial to feel tliat we are 
under the censure of our neighbors, espe¬ 
cially when we do what is right and what 
should win their applause. This trial is 
often heightened as other trials are by the 
workings of the imagination, which makes 
us over-sensitive and prone to take offence. 
Men are in numberless cases better, or less 
wicked than they seem. He who dispar¬ 
ages you in one place will often do you 
justice in another, or if he blames you in 
his words he will praise, you in his 
thoughts. He may repeat the idle and 
unfounded accusations of other persons 
against you, and yet acquit you in the 
presence of his own conscience. 

The words of men may be suggested by 


HUMAN RESPECT. 


57 


the prevailing fashion or folly of the day. 
Men quickly imitate each other by casting 
censure or ridicule upon their neighbor in 
thoughtless or flippant expressions. But 
ignorance and malice, even among men of 
the world, cannot have their sway un¬ 
checked. There is a spoken public opinion 
which we become acquainted with by list¬ 
ening to what people say when they are 
not earnest, thoughtful, or sincere. There 
is also an unspoken and secret opinion, 
not public but general nevertheless, and it 
is that which rules the minds and hearts 
of men, when they think and judge for 
themselves in moments of calm reflection. 
There lies an appeal from the hasty words 
of the former kind of judgment, to the 
sober thought of the latter. 

Our Master has warned us that the judg¬ 
ments of the world are not the judgments 
of God. This establishes the right of a 
Christian to appeal from the unjust judg¬ 
ment of man to the just judgment of Eter- 


58 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


nal Wisdom. The judgment of man unjust 
and untrue must fail, and the judgment of 
God must triumph. 

He who is permitted to suffer from the 
attacks of calumny and misrepresentation, 
leans against a wall of granite when he can 
say with fulness of trust: The Lord is my 
Judge! 

Whom shall we fear and obey—God or 
man ? Better to die than sacrifice principle 
from cowardly fear of the opinion of a 
thoughtless and fickle world ! 

The just man is prudent in his dealings 
with his fellow-men even in reference to 
their impressions and r opinions. In their 
presence he is not a coward, nor yet is he 
rash or foolhardy. He fears not the cen¬ 
sure of the world, but he does not wantonly 
provoke it. He is not virtuous for the sake 
of its good opinion, but he does not need¬ 
lessly injure or expose his good name, and 
the cause of virtue with which it is con¬ 
nected. If by doing his duty he happens 


HUMAN RESPECT. 


59 


to win the approval of his fellow-men, he 
makes use of the respect he has secured in 
the service of honor and truth. If he is 
treated with harshness, contempt, or ridi¬ 
cule, he hides his opportunity, well know¬ 
ing that in the course of time even those 
who are unmistakably wicked, will not 
fail to give due credit to unaffected good¬ 
ness and well-established integrity. 


60 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XII. 

OBEDIENCE. 

When inanimate or unreasoning crea¬ 
tures are said to obey, it is a figure of 
speech, comparing them to intelligent be¬ 
ings. Thus we say figuratively that the 
plants and the trees obey, that the waves 
of the sea in their motion, and the stars of 
heaven in their revolutions, obey the law 
of their Creator. Involuntary obedience 
is improperly called obedience at all. To 
obey on the part of an intelligent being, is 
to know the law and willingly comply with 
it when known. 

Ho law is ever obeyed which has not 
been reasoned on. The reasoning may 
have been brief, the work of an instant, 
but the fact that we know that the law is a 
law, proves that our reason has acted and 


OBEDIENCE. 


61 


come to the conclusion that it is right to 
obey. 

Children and persons who are agitated 
by religious scruples, by doubt and inde¬ 
cision, are wisely told to yield blind obe¬ 
dience to their superiors ; and we read that 
many of the saints of God professed to 
obey blindly and without examination, the 
commands of legitimate authority. But 
even in these cases the obedience is not 
unreasoning. There is no immediate in¬ 
vestigation into the justice or injustice of 
the special command, but he who thus 
obeys, has satisfied himself, by a previous 
or remote examination, that his superior 
is really his superior ; that it is God’s will 
he should obey; that, finally, he is in no 
danger of doing wrong by being obedient. 

The very person who is most perfectly 
obedient would be the last one to listen 
willingly to any human authority com¬ 
manding him to break the law of God. He 
is fully convinced that he is under proper 


62 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


guidance, and with love and entire trust he 
obeys, as a child obeys a noble and affec¬ 
tionate parent, or as a soldier obeys a gallant 
and admired officer who calls for followers 
in some dangerous assault upon the works 
of the enemy. It is indeed possible that 
easy and affectionate compliance with the 
will of every one in authority may go too 
far and lead to the abuse of power, but the 
opposite excess of stubborn and captious 
resistance to law and authority is much 
more likely to occur, and is the more in¬ 
jurious to individual souls and to the com¬ 
munity. 

Obedience, in its noblest and highest 
sense, is the submission of man to his God. 
In all cases of rightful obedience, no mat¬ 
ter what may be the law or who the per¬ 
son administering it, we can say with truth, 
that we yield compliance only because it is 
the will of God that we should do so. The 
superior, whether civil or ecclesiastical, 
has no authority over his fellow-man unless 


OBEDIENCE. 


63 


in so far as God gives it to him. When he 
speaks in the name of God, he has the right 
to command and it is our duty to obey. 
When he speaks without divine authority, 
then there is on our part no duty to obey, 
because there is on his part no right to 
command. 


64 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

HUMAN SUFFERING. 

Our Divine Master bade ns trust in God 
in all the wants and trials of life, being 
well assured that He who feeds the birds 
of the air and clothes in more than regal 
beauty the lilies of the field, will not fail 
to remember us in our need. Steady faith 
in the power of God to help us and filial 
trust in.His willingness to do so, are the 
main sources of Christian consolation for 
the afflicted. Yet they who suffer have 
temptations peculiar to themselves, and 
are beset at times by the whisperings of 
an insidious voice, which seeks to weaken 
their faith at the very seasons when it 
needs to be strongest. 

They are led to think that hunger, pov¬ 
erty, sickness, deformity, want of success, 


HUMAN SUFFERING. 


65 


and all the physical evils and inconveni¬ 
ences of life are sufferings from which God 
grants relief; why then did He not save us 
from them altogether? This is precisely 
what God did in the beginning. Man from 
his creation was gifted with entire immu¬ 
nity from physical inconvenience, not in 
virtue of any right of his own nature but 
by the mercy of God. Had he not become 
a sinner he would not have become a suf¬ 
ferer. But could not our Heavenly Father 
have saved man from physical suffering 
even after his sin? He could have done 
so, doubtless, by bringing the punishment 
to bear upon man in some other relation, 
by punishing the soul in place of the body. 
But would man be any better off had God 
stricken him with a sentence of spiritual 
death, as he did the angels immediately 
after their sin ? Certainly not, for then his 
punishment would have been eternal and 
not temporal as it is now. And would 
man have gained any thing had God pun- 
5 


66 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ished him by degrading his soul to the 
level of the beasts of the field that perish ? 
Would it have been better for mankind to 
lose the use of intellect, or of memory, or 
of free-will, or the immortality of the soul, 
than health, bodily strength, and beauty, 
the material advantages of life, and even 
the life of the body itself ? It would have 
been far worse ; for surely the soul of man, 
created only little less beautiful than the 
angels, is more precious than the body, 
which he shares in common with dumb 
animals and inanimate nature itself. Any 
penalty, then, degrading or afflicting the 
body is easier to submit to than an inflic¬ 
tion upon the soul. It follows from these 
reflections that the lightest punishment that 
could be inflicted upon man for his sin was 
physical punishment. This is what the 
Divine Judge meted out to him, when he 
cursed the field of his labor, and con¬ 
demned him to death. The ultimate end 
for which he had been created remained 


HUMAN SUFFEKING. 


67 


the same, and although the soul lost many 
advantages which adorned it while in its 
state of primeval integrity, yet man was 
stricken by no curse or penalty pro¬ 
nounced directly against his soul. 

Will the question be asked, why did 
God intrust him with the dangerous gift 
of free-will, making it possible for him to 
rush into the commission of the act having 
all these physical evils for its conse¬ 
quences ? Let us endeavor to answer. Be- 
cause, of free-will on the one hand and 
immunity from suffering on the other, the 
former was the nobler and richer gift. The 
latter would have shielded the body from 
the ills of life, but the former adorned the 
soul with a likeness to the Divine nature, 
a miniature resemblance to the omnipo¬ 
tence of God. 

Are we then left to groan under our suf¬ 
ferings, with only a hope of partial assist¬ 
ance to bear the burden, and no positive 
certainty of entire relief 2 We answer— 


68 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


No! Whoever suffers is a witness of 
God’s vigilant mercy. He who atoned for 
the guilt of the original disobedience, in¬ 
augurated a system which will, in course 
of time, put an end to all penalties brought 
on by that disobedience. 

The work of redemption will, in one 
sense, be finished only when the last re¬ 
deemed soul enters into glory. In that day 
sin and suffering shall be no more for the 
servants of God. The flesh shall not rebel 
against the law of the spirit; physical pain 
shall be unfelt and unknown in the world ; 
and the body, in spite of death, shall be re¬ 
stored to more than its pristine dignity and 
splendor, becoming impassible and imper¬ 
ishable for all eternity. 

It is indeed true that God does not ac¬ 
complish all this in the hasty manner de¬ 
manded by our restlessness and impatience. 
Redemption did not dawn on the morning 
after sin, nor did immortality for all, imme¬ 
diately follow Redemption. Time passes, 


HUMAN SUFFERING. 


69 


but only time enough to evolve the grace 
of God, and develop the virtues of which 
humanity is capable. Time passes, but if 
we are patient and faithful it will end in 
an eternity of peace and security. 


70 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XIY. 

MORTIFICATION 

There is no greatness of soul, or growth 
in spiritual life without self-control; and 
mortification is self-denial, or the practice 
of self-control. He who subdues an appe¬ 
tite or a passion, may do so by sheer dint 
and purpose of will, or by supernatural 
assistance; but few are able to curb the 
pride of bodily impulse without resorting 
to abstinence, penance, and similar austeri¬ 
ties. Even the man of pleasure, and the 
libertine, must deny themselves and ab¬ 
stain from indulgence under pain of weak¬ 
ness and death. Fasting at times is an indis¬ 
pensable means for preserving or recover¬ 
ing health, and the vigor of the mind, which 
is weighed down and weakened by excess, 
is restored to fresh activity by abstinence. 


MORTIFICATION. 


71 


Thus nature herself points out the necessity 
of mortification and makes provision for its 
exercise, without reference to spiritual con¬ 
siderations. 

It is an effectual means for getting the 
powers of the mind and will into good 
working order, and making sure that the 
nerves of the spirit will be steady and not 
fail us when the hour comes for action. 
Religion teaches us to lay hold of so excel¬ 
lent a help when the energy of our being 
is to be put forth, under the guidance of 
divine grace. 

The highest kind of mortification is that 
which disciplines the soul, keeping in 
check our desires, emotions, and inclina¬ 
tions, repressing avarice, curiosity, jeal¬ 
ousy, likes and dislikes, vanity, ambition, 
and all the various impulses and energies, 
which are very good servants, but very 
hard masters. The soul which keeps a 
watch, lest, even in desire, it should allow 
itself too much freedom and ease, will of 


72 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


course put down promptly all attempts at 
rebellion on the part of the animal passions. 
The works of mortification are simply aids, 
appliances, and expedients, which out¬ 
wardly assist and promote the virtue of 
mortification. 

Self-infliction is indifferent of itself, and 
may he the result of virtue or of ignorance, 
vanity, hypocrisy, or superstition. As a 
means towards the end of keeping us in 
mind of our good resolutions ; of keeping 
the body subject to the law of the spirit; 
of removing the consequences of past mis¬ 
takes, or warding them off in future, the 
works of mortification are sensible, useful, 
and holy. They must be resorted to, how¬ 
ever, with discretion and due regard for the 
health of soul and body. As a further meas¬ 
ure of prudence, they had better not be 
used at all unless under proper direction. 

The copying of the austerities alleged to 
have been practised by some saintly man 
or woman, must be allowed with great cau- 


MORTIFICATION. 


73 


tion to scrupulous and enthusiastic souls. 
Were the dispositions and circumstances 
of the disciple to-day exactly the same as 
those of the Saint he is striving to imitate, 
then such imitation might he useful and 
proper. Until this identity of situation is 
established, it will be wise to admire, but 
not always to imitate, the great and holy 
men of other days in their penitential aus¬ 
terities. The spirit of mortification is a 
matter of duty and precept; the choice of 
material performances must be regulated 
by considerations of time and place, and 
adopted only under the guidance of wise 
and saintly counsel. 


74 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


jCHAPTEE xv. 

REGRET AND REPENTANCE. 

Every temptation is a sophism, for it 
sets before ns the pleasure of sinning in an 
exaggerated light, and hides the pain in 
the dim distance, or places it entirely out 
of sight. Many have driven the tempter 
back by reflecting upon the miserable feel¬ 
ing of remorse and degradation which they 
are sure, from experience, will follow the 
momentary gratification of a sinful act. 

When sin has been committed, we may 
be sorry for it, grieving as the son grieves 
who feels that he has behaved unworthily 
and offended a good and noble father; or 
we may be sorry with that feeling of re¬ 
gret which causes us to be chagrined and 
indignant only .because pride, vainglory, 
and conceit are called in as mourners over 


REGRET AND REPENTANCE. 


75 


the fall of self. Nature leads us to regret, 
but Religion teaches us to repent. 

Repentance is a process of reparation by 
which the sinner turns his fault to advan¬ 
tage. Not stopping to grieve and chafe 
over his fall, he manfully acknowledges 
the wrong done, and sets about discovering 
the causes of his error in the past, so as to 
avoid committing it in the future. He thus 
enlists vice in the only service it can ren¬ 
der to virtue, making error serve as a 
warning against itself and an incentive to 
greater care and watchfulness in the steady 
performance of duty. 

A mind that is feeble will waste the pre¬ 
cious hours in worry and vexation of spirit 
over that which is past beyond recall, but a 
healthy and resolute character, leaving the 
dead Past to bury its dead, will gird itself to 
renewed exertions, and, with God’s grace, 
to new triumphs in the path of honor. 
There are, indeed, evil consequences and 
effects of wrong-doing which exist even 


76 


SPIKITUAL PROGRESS. 


long after the evil action lias been com¬ 
mitted. These unwholesome remnants 
should be looked after and removed from 
the soul, but their baneful influence is to 
be corrected by honest humility, not by 
the chafings of wounded pride. Repara¬ 
tion is needed, not regret. The thorns and 
weeds which overspread the garden of the 
sluggard will be rooted out by increased 
energy and earnest labor, not by idle com¬ 
plaints and weak self-accusation. Want 
of vigilance was the cause of the evil that 
has come upon the land, and want of 
promptness and resolution may aggravate 
the affliction, but cannot diminish or re¬ 
move it. 

Christian Wisdom assists us to learn 
from every fault we commit, a lesson that 
leads us to practise the opposite virtue. 
He who falls must arise promptly and 
walk more carefully on his journey. It 
happens at times, by this means, that he 
who has stumbled and fallen is safer than 


REGRET AND REPENTANCE. 


77 


he who, haying never transgressed, is un¬ 
acquainted with the danger to which he is 
exposed, and sins more easily because he 
is off his guard. Humility and trust in 
God will preserve the one from falling, and 
teach the other to rise, without permanent 
injury to the health of his soul. 



78 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

TEMPTATION. 

There are two kinds of temptation to 
evil, one external, the other internal. The 
first consists of an argument placed before 
the mind, inviting it to evil, or of an induce¬ 
ment presented to the will, encouraging it 
to transgression, or of an image raised up 
before the imagination, alluring it towards 
what is unholy. Again, it may be flattery 
insidiously working on our self-esteem, the 
offer of some good, real or apparent; some 
object presented to us as pleasant or ad¬ 
vantageous ; or some solicitation addressed 
to the passions to have their way, God’s 
holy law to the contrary notwithstanding. 

The second kind of temptation, which is 
nearly always brought on by the first, con- 


TEMPTATION. 


79 


sists in the inclination rising np within ns, 
to yield and follow the object of enticement 
placed before our view. It is human 
weakness moving us to accept the gratifi¬ 
cation presented to our mind by passion. 
The mere fact of an object being presented 
before us is no sin, nor is it a sin to have a 
feeling favorable to that object, or the in¬ 
clination to make it our own. 

But what is the further nistory of a 
temptation ? We generally find that it re¬ 
mains in the mind, and begins to excite 
the lower appetites of our nature. Our 
minds get excited, confused, darkened; we 
resist feebly and still more feebly; we 
dwell on the temptation, and finally we 
give way to it, that is, we yield our con¬ 
sent to the object proposed. What was 
only an offer is accepted; what was a 
suggestion, approved; what was a propo¬ 
sal is ratified as an agreement; what was 
an exhibition we condemned, is now looked 
at with pleasure; and what we rejected 


80 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


with horror, is wilfully embraced and in¬ 
dulged in. 

This fatal step from resistance to accept¬ 
ance is sometimes the work of an instant; 
we are surprised into consenting, almost 
before we are aware of it, and sometimes 
we are wearied and worn out by the con¬ 
flict, and we yield with reluctance and 
shame after hours, or even days, of internal 
struggle and excitement. 

Still, the path of duty is perfectly clear ; 
one of two things must be done. We must 
avoid temptation if we can possibly do so, 
or if we And that this cannot be done, then 
we must resist to the death, let the conse¬ 
quences be what they may. Our Master 
taught us to pray that we may not be led 
into temptation; but if, unfortunately, we 
are so led, then we pray that at least we 
may be delivered from evil. 


GOOD RESOLUTIONS. 


81 


CHAPTER XVII. 

GOOD RESOLUTIONS. 

Persons of gentle and yielding disposi¬ 
tions are startled when they come in con¬ 
tact with a rugged nature and iron will. 
For there are these giants of humanity who 
shape their resolves as the furnace and 
trip-hammer shape masses of metal. They 
bear down all opposition, compelling 
weaker spirits into compliance. Yet the 
power and tenacity of purpose that sur¬ 
prise temperaments of a finer and frailer 
mould do not belong exclusively to the 
bold and the great, for even the most unob¬ 
trusive persons are capable of it at times. 
It is a trait of character in men to form their 
resolutions with fervor and impetuosity, 
but the milder and quieter spirit of woman 
comes silently and almost unconsciously 
6 


82 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


to determinations that are not shaken or 
altered by the wear and tear of even a 
whole lifetime. Man is gifted with strength, 
woman with endurance. 

The difficulty for dispositions of average 
power and perseverance is found, not so 
much in coming to a resolution of sufficient 
intensity, but in keeping it for any length 
of time. The smooth water of an Alpine 
fountain may be frozen into a mass as hard 
apparently as glass, but the hot rays of 
summer soften it until it yields gradually 
and at length finally melts away altogether. 
Thus it is often with a resolution formed in 
the cool seclusion of prayer, when it is ex¬ 
posed to the softening influence of worldly 
prosperity. ' 

He who forms a resolution shows that 
his will is strong, and his mind made up 
at the time. But, will it keep its strength 
when the time is past ? That is the ques¬ 
tion. The poor inebriate who knows from 
experience his infirmity of purpose, tries 


GOOD RESOLUTION'S. 


83 


to make his pledge binding by taking a 
solemn oath, by invoking curses on his 
head if he is unfaithful. And yet as time 
rolls on, it is seen very clearly that his 
outspoken and emphatic declarations were 
written in the sand, and become the sport 
of the first idle puff of air, or truant wave 
of circumstance that happens to pass that 
way. 

The proper method for maintaining the 
firmness of our promises is to go back to 
the considerations that made them firm in 
the beginning. One gets disgusted with 
sin, and filled with remorse for having 
committed it, and resolves to break away 
from it. He has had unpleasant experi¬ 
ences and impressions of sin; he thinks 
and feels that it can only make him un- 
happy, a full conviction takes possession 
of him that he ought to make an end of it, 
and the will, impelled, excited, and heated 
by these considerations, registers in heaven 
a strong determination, with the help of 


84 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


God, to avoid sin for the future. He must 
not leave his resolution standing isolated 
and unsupported. He must cultivate it 
with the same zeal with which he first 
planted it. He must foster and cherish it 
by returning again to the thoughts and 
feelings that preceded it and helped him to 
make it strong. He must renew his prom¬ 
ise morning and night, and particularly 
when he feels that it is growing weak, 
and in danger of being broken. He must 
surround and protect it with prayer, and 
avoid all occasions likely to make him for¬ 
get the happy frame of mind in which he 
first made it. 

If the weakness of human nature causes 
him to lose sight of his resolve, he must 
take its very first infraction as the sound¬ 
ing of an alarm to warn him that he is in 
danger, and that he must keep watch over 
himself with renewed vigilance. Bad 
habits take a long time to form, and they 
cannot be thrown off without exertion. 


GOOD RESOLUTIONS. 


85 


The good habit which replaces them, can 
only be formed by a repetition of good 
acts. Drops of water falling from the roof 
of a cave, form, in the course of time, a pil¬ 
lar of stalactite, bright and strong to behold. 
The process, though, of this wonderful for¬ 
mation is slow and barely perceptible. So 
do single small acts of our will form them¬ 
selves by repetition into lasting and un¬ 
shaken habits. 

If men could become good by one strong 
resolve few would be wicked, for all have 
the desire to be good some time in the course 
of their lives. But vice can rarely if ever 
be abandoned, or perfection attained by 
one sudden effort, any more than heaven can 
be entered at a single bound. 


86 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

DISCOURAGEMENT. 

Every man, no matter liow exalted his 
position,, or important his work, is apt to 
feel discouraged at times. All have their 
seasons of excitement, and their seasons of 
uninteresting repose. The greatest con¬ 
queror of ancient times is said to have 
wept when he found himself condemned to 
a period of unusual repose, because there 
were no more worlds to gain, and many 
Saints, during a lull of labor, feared they 
had not done enough to save their own 
souls, although the}' had been the instru¬ 
ments, in the hands of God, of the salvation 
of many thousands of their fellow-men. 

He acts wisely who resolutely sets his 
face against the feeling of discouragement, 
and goes on cheerfully with his work, 


DISCOURAGEMENT. 


87 


whatever it may be, or wherever it may be 
placed. Why should you give way to de¬ 
pression? Are you discouraged because 
you think your work poor and worthless, 
and your life of little significancy or impor¬ 
tance ? If your tendency to despond arises 
from this point of view, consider calmly 
the following suggestions : 

1st. The value of your work does not 
arise from the nature of what you are 
doing, but from the fact that God wishes it 
to be done. No task is great or little in 
itself, but it is great if God appoints it; 
little, if done without his appointment. 

2d. Do not estimate the value of your 
work by-comparing it with the work of 
others, but be satisfied with doing even a 
little, good, if you cannot do more. He 
whose work you are tempted to consider so 
much superior to your own, may be as¬ 
sailed by the same temptation, when he 
considers the work you are doing. You 
are both engaged in what is necessary and 


88 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


important. The man who on board a ship 
takes in the topsails to save the vessel from 
being driven upon a lee-shore, does no 
more useful service than he who stops a 
little leak in the timbers at the bottom of 
the hold. Both do their duty, and both 
save the vessel in their own way. 

3d. Work which seems obscure and un¬ 
interesting, may be as fully important as 
that which is showy and attractive. There 
will be this difference, however, between 
them : that you who have a task that does 
not bring the attention of the world to bear 
upon you, will be free from the temptation 
of pride. Were you exposed to the notice 
and praise of the world, you might lose 
your humility, and the reward that cannot 
be obtained without it. 

4th. If the cloud of discouragement that 
darkens round about you, is a matter of 
feeling and sentiment, you have it in your 
power to disperse it by rousing your will 
to a state of healthy activity, and reso- 


DISCOURAGEMENT. 


89 


lutely discountenancing all gloomy fancies. 
Courage, O soldier, in the good cause ! The 
difficulty and the dulness of the present, 
belong only to the present; they cannot 
last! Remember the glorious combats of 
the Past, and the light of victory that shone 
upon their close. Fear not! they will be 
repeated in the future, and the season of 
inactivity will be found to have been a sea¬ 
son of repose, during which Providence 
checked your impetuosity only that you 
might gather new strength for fresh efforts 
and fresh successes. Put yourself, then, in 
true earnest on the side of your work, and 
fight, not in favor of discouragement, but 
against it. 

5th. If the work you are tempted to 
despise and make little of, were really 
contemptible and poor, desponding would 
not mend matters, but only make them 
worse. But are you right in setting it down 
as insignificant and poor ? Are not others 
who are engaged in the same or similar 


90 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


tasks, wiser than you, when they go on 
contentedly without fault-finding, and give 
their whole attention to the duties of their 
station in life \ May not the work be all 
right, and the trouble be rather with the 
workman ? Are there not others engaged 
in the same manner that you are, who do 
their duty in a less careless and slovenly 
manner, and who present much more satis¬ 
factory results from exactly the same mate¬ 
rials % Answer these questions fairly, and 
if you find that you are to blame, correct 
the fault, wherever it may be found, and 
you will at once begin to be happier and 
more useful. 

6th. Finally, do not let familiarity with 
your duties breed contempt for them. 
Force yourself up to esteem for your occu¬ 
pations. Do not permit yourself to be 
wanting in respect for your office, whatever 
it may be. Be satisfied with even partial 
success—with introducing even limited re¬ 
forms—removing small prejudices—laying 


DISCOURAGEMENT. 


91 


up, even slowly, a treasure for the future. 
For the Christian who makes it a constant 
study to do all that is required of him, and 
to do it properly and well, no life is dull, 
no time is uneventful, and even the most 
ordinary duties are of high importance. 


92 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

ENERGY. 

Tiie want of energy is very readily no¬ 
ticed, and leads ns to hold in light esteem 
a character otherwise adorned with many 
amiable and estimable qualities. The man 
of clear views and of wise and beneficent 
purposes, cannot secure the trust and con¬ 
fidence of others, if he is cold, slow, inac¬ 
tive, undecided, ineffectual—in short, if he 
is not energetic. 

Energy, in connection with spiritual 
things, can scarcely be described as a sin¬ 
gle quality or virtue. It is a power which 
gives vigor to every active virtue, as a 
general reservoir supplies each pipe and 
conduit with pure water, gushing forth to 
slake the thirst of cities and villages, or to 
freshen field, garden, and valley, and glad- 


ENERGY. 


93 


den the face of nature. It is the strength 
which is alike in all virtues, in the courage 
that nobly dares, and in the self-denial that 
patiently endures. This power is acquired 
by living in the light of just and wise prin¬ 
ciples, by faithfulness to divine grace, by 
practising the avoidance of all mean and 
ignoble actions, and growing daily and 
hourly in habits of natural virtue and 
Christian duty. It becomes inherent in the 
soul, and is possessed even when not put 
forth strongly in active operations, just as 
a healthy and thorough man is strong even 
in repose, and when he gives no outward 
demonstration of his strength. 

It is a common error to mistake mere ef¬ 
fort for energy. Where there is real power 
adequate to the performance of the task in 
hand, there will be no effort. The strong 
man will lift a weight easily and even 
gracefully,while the weak man, who rushes 
forward and puts forth all his strength, 
may pant and tug at the burden, but either 


94 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


fails to accomplish the task or does it only 
in a strained and awkward manner, show¬ 
ing plainly his want of the requisite 
power. 

There is in connection with every form 
of bravery a true energy and its counter¬ 
feit. Bluster is not courage, rashness is 
not readiness, doggedness is not fortitude, 
stupidity is not patience, foolhardiness is 
not valor, recklessness is not magnanimity, 
and desperation is not self-devotion. 

An officer may seize the right moment to 
make an impetuous and daring charge, 
because he is cool and collected, and cal¬ 
culates with reason on a favorable oppor¬ 
tunity of breaking the enemy’s line. An¬ 
other may order the same movement at the 
wrong moment, because he is hot, because 
his brain is full of blood, because he is 
blinded by excitement, because he has lost 
his self-possession, and even, strange to 
say, because he is driven frantic by fear. 
The difference between the two men and 


ENERGY. 


95 


the two orders is plain to the most casual 
observer. 

The virtue of zeal is energy applied to 
the interests of religion, but if this energy 
becomes ill-regulated or unreflecting, it is 
true zeal no longer. It may even degene¬ 
rate into bigotry and intolerance, doing 
work not for truth and virtue but for error 
and sin. There is a dignity about all real 
virtue insuring a repose, which is not 
among the least of virtue’s charms. Ener¬ 
gy is not opposed to this calm restfulness ; 
on the contrary, there is no real strength 
without it. In nature we And that it is the 
shallow brook that runs foaming and 
brawling ’on its way, while the deep and 
majestic river flows grandly and silently 
on, imitating the calm of the mighty ocean 
into which it is soon destined to fall. 
Mountains, the emblem of massive and 
abiding strength, present themselves to the 
eye and to the memory clothed in a mantle 
of silence, or if visited by the fury of a 


96 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


storm, it can only ruffle tlie woods upon 
their bosom, and whirl about in anger the 
clouds that gather around their brow. 

He who would progress in spiritual life 
must learn to mistrust that energy which 
is the result of a lively temperament or 
momentary excitement, and cultivate assid¬ 
uously that which is based upon firm con 
viction and the fortitude of a resolute will, 
assisted by the grace of God. The former 
kind flashes up like a fire of straw but dies 
quickly, leaving behind it a deeper dark¬ 
ness than before, while the latter burns 
silently and steadily, like the deep and 
slow heat of molten metal. Energy which 
is allowed to break out thoughtlessly, is 
sure to end in mischief to your neighbor 
and remorse to yourself, while, on the con¬ 
trary, if it is guided by prudence and char¬ 
ity, it is sure to benefit yourself and others. 
Judge of your energy by the test of perse¬ 
verance. If its motives are holy, it will be 
as steadfast as they are, and not pass away 


ENERGY. 


97 


with the feelings or circumstances which 
call it into exercise. If it is not inherent 
and persevering, then it is imperfect as yet 
and unworthy of trust. 

It is an error, however, to confound the 
power itself with its outward expression. 
For we may say of energy wliat has been 
said of grief, namely, that when it speaks 
loudly it is only slight, but great and pro¬ 
found when silent. To be useful, it must 
not be a force which holds us under con¬ 
trol, but which we hold under control; it 
must be a servant, not a master. We shall 
thus be able at any time to use it judi¬ 
ciously, addressing ourselves to the per¬ 
formance of our duty, without being under 
the necessity of waiting until we are in¬ 
spired, or until “we feel like it,” or until 
sentiment or imagination come to the res¬ 
cue, turning our life-task into holiday, and 
our bounden duty into a matter of inclina¬ 
tion and amusement. 

7 


98 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XX. 

SCHOOLING OF THE IMAGINATION. 

Tiie beautiful faculty of the Imagination 
when it has been properly trained, is a 
perpetual well-spring of delight to the soul, 
but when foully or improperly trained, is 
a source of constant uneasiness. Its func¬ 
tions are mixed up with all our joys and 
all our miseries. 

The words Fancy and Imagination are 
often used as if they meant the same thing ; 
but in order to be clearly understood in 
our remarks, we shall speak of Fancy as 
the faculty by which the mind forms images 
or representations of things at pleasure. 
Fancy is the painter of the soul. Imagina¬ 
tion has an ampler mission, and does more 
than mirror outside objects to the soul. It 
takes up the conceptions we have formed 
and improves on them; arranges them in 


SCHOOLING OF THE IMAGINATION. 99 


novel combinations; and, from the exact 
delineation or portrait of things transcribed 
through the senses and retained by mem¬ 
ory, it works up new ideas, broader, high¬ 
er, brighter, or darker, than those found 
to exist in nature. Imagination is the poet 
of the soul. 

It is easy to see how the power of imagi¬ 
nation may be made to serve religion. It 
recounts the history of the birth, life, pas¬ 
sion, and death of our Lord, and of the 
mission of His Apostles, but arrayed in all 
the charms of lively imagery, and places 
them before us as living and active beings, 
prea6hing and teaching in town and hamlet, 
doing good to all, and our meditation be¬ 
comes a lifelike picture, in place of a dull 
recollection of dry facts. We hear songs, 
and the flutter of many wings at Bethlehem, 
and see the light streaming from heaven 
upon the face of the new-born Saviour. 
We look out over the blue waters of the 
Lake of Genesareth, and see the quaint lit- 


100 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


tie bark of Peter as it lay near the shore, 
when Jesus preached to the people from 
its side, or as it flew before the wind, when 
the sea waxed wroth and a great storm 
arose, He meanwhile sleeping and they 
fearing they would perish. With the aid 
of this wonderful faculty we see Him be¬ 
fore us in the hour of His triumph, sur¬ 
rounded by the multitudes singing, “Ho¬ 
sanna to the Son of David,” and in that sad 
day of His final sorrow, when the same 
voices swelled the fearful cry: “Crucify 
Him, Crucify Him.” 

And yet this Imagination, that when 
properly guided becomes a ministering 
angel among the other faculties of the soul, 
may be betrayed into the service of passion, 
and lead into abject slavery the most gifted 
and beautiful souls. 

He who has no rule for holding his Im¬ 
agination in check, will find his truant 
thoughts resist every attempt at bringing 
them down to steady application. If he 


SCHOOLING OF THE IMAGINATION. 101 


has indulged habitually in improper de¬ 
sires, unbecoming reminiscences, loose 
reading, and the favorite pastime of idle 
youth, which is known as building castles 
in the air, he will find it very difficult to 
direct his attention to any thing serious. 
His prayers will be full of distractions; his 
attempts at study a broken, wearisome, 
and unsuccessful labor ; his efforts to medi¬ 
tate or think upon any grave subject, a 
mere wandering revery, more like the 
dream of a sick man than the deliberate 
self-communing of a sane one. His past 
sins will come up again to tempt him ; the 
very occasions on which lie resisted the 
tempter will repeat the spell of their fasci¬ 
nation upon him ; and not only will he 
suffer from the annoyance of irrelevant and 
disturbing ideas, but his mind will be over¬ 
run by images of its own creating, dangerous 
to dwell upon, and difficult to repel. A 
diseased imagination is a serious drawback 
both to mental and spiritual culture. 


102 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


As another instance of such evil effects, let 
ns consider this power, as it is frequently 
found, guiding the conduct of woman. 
We express surprise every day when an 
intelligent and gifted woman makes choice 
of some man for a companion who is utterly 
unworthy and unfit for her, and perhaps 
only too likely to make her unhappy. The 
power of Imagination explains the false 
step made. A woman who has hut limited 
experience of the world builds up an ideal 
personage, and easily persuades herself 
that some one she knows possesses all the 
perfections with which she has invested 
her imaginary hero. The person she ad¬ 
mires may be irreclaimably vile, but when 
called on to examine his character, she 
thinks only of the brilliant ideal which has 
taken possession of her mind. She hurries 
events to their crisis—she marries—and 
lives or dies one more example of the folly 
of hasty and inconsiderate marriages. 

I have said elsewhere that, in judging of 


SCHOOLING OF THE IMAGINATION. 103 


character, woman’s instinct is to be relied 
upon in preference to man’s judgment. 
This is certainly not true in the case of a 
woman who is the prey of a distempered 
imagination; for she sees things in a false 
and distorted light, and, of course, she 
will so represent them to others. And 
again, the woman who feeds her mind with 
fashionable novel-reading, spends her time 
in the vanities and follies of the world, is 
unfaithful to her duties, and untrue to her 
mission, can be but a poor guide or ad¬ 
viser. Taking false views of life, even her 
generous impulses will mislead her in her 
actions. Where her feelings are interested 
she will exaggerate what is true, and grad¬ 
ually learn even to put boldly forward 
what she knows to be false. Her reason 
being asleep, her imagination can but 
dream, and she will be driven about like a 
ship at sea without rudder or compass. 

The delicate female organization is liable 
to be influenced widely by the power of 


104 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Imagination; but all must endeavor to keep 
themselves free from the capricious tyranny 
of a faculty, beautiful and useful when 
schooled and controlled by the will, but 
very treacherous and erratic when left to 
run at large in its own wild way. 


PRIDE AND HUMILITY. 


105 


CHAPTER XXI. 

PRIDE AND HUMILITY. 

Pride is such a deceitful vice that it 
looks almost like a virtue. The good, even 
while doing their best to serve God, fall 
into it unawares, and the world, while it is 
ashamed of other faults and hides them, 
rather glories in its Pride and praises those 
who possess it. 

Humility, the favorite virtue of our Mas¬ 
ter, is the vigilant guardian of all other 
virtues. Without her fostering care, other 
useful qualities gradually stretch and loosen 
the link that binds them to goodness, and 
become the handmaidens of Passion and 
self-love. Perfection itself is not safe with¬ 
out Humility, while with it virtuous medi¬ 
ocrity even is nearly always sure to im¬ 
prove, and reach a happy end. 


106 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Now the very essence of Humility is 
Truth, and it is therefore godlike, "be¬ 
cause God is the Truth. The very core 
and soul of Pride is falsehood, and Pride 
is the special sin of the Evil Spirit, who is 
the father of lies. 

He is humble who holds himself in low¬ 
ly estimation for the reason that he knows 
himself well, too well to form a lofty esti¬ 
mate of his merits. He holds himself at 
the true estimate of his worth, neither more 
nor less. He admits his good traits without 
vainglory, for he knows that God gave them 
to him ; and he admits his defects without 
shame, because he knows that he is human 
and subject to human weaknesses. 

He is proud who conceives an inordinate 
estimate of his merits, or of the people and 
things that belong to him. He lies to him¬ 
self, because he lays claim to advantages 
and perfections that he does not really pos¬ 
sess ; or, if he is truthful in his claims, then 
he is exaggerated and wide of the mark in 


PRIDE AND HUMILITY. 


107 


the degree and extent of merit which he 
falsely believes or affirms to be his own. 

Pride, although apparently high-minded 
and noble, is capable of stooping to very 
paltry devices in the service of self, and it 
is never meaner than when it apes the garb 
and tone of humility. To exclaim ‘ 4 Lord ! 
Lord!” with much outward solemnity, 
may seem and sound like prayer, and self¬ 
depreciation may seem and sound like 
humility. But not all those who cry 
4 4 Lord ! Lord !” shall enter into the king¬ 
dom of heaven; and not all those who 
speak against self shall avoid the hell of 
pride. He who, to seem humble, denies 
the possession of some good trait which he 
knows he possesses, denies the truth, and 
there can be no humility where there is no 
truth. The truly humble man speaks 
rarely of himself or his belongings, either 
in praise or in blame. 

There is a false humility which injures a 
man, and prevents his doing manly and 


108 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


healthful work, by inspiring him with a 
morbid fear of his own weakness, and by 
making him shrink from responsibilities 
which it is clearly a matter of duty to meet 
bravely and without flinching. Cowardice 
is not humility, and exaggerated fear of 
failure may be a lowly estimate of personal 
worth, but it is not a true one when God 
wishes us to hear and obey. God could 
not require us to assume a burden too 
heavy for our strength, and any burden 
He assigns to us is really light enough for 
us to carry, with His divine assistance. The 
Saviour’s human will drew back from the 
bitter chalice of his Passion, but the inspi¬ 
ration it received from the Divine Will 
within was, to say : “ Father! thy will be 
done, not mine.” 

True Humility never prevents the full 
and effectual use of what talents or skill we 
may possess. If I am gifted with a turn 
for music, or drawing, or for oratory, or 
any other employment of tact or skill, and 


PRIDE AND HUMILITY. 


109 


if I have had opportunities to cultivate this 
natural facility, I will have acquired the 
power to sing, play, draw, or speak. I 
know the art, and I know that I am able 
to put this knowledge into practice. I 
would lie to myself, were I to say that I 
have not such ability, for to say so would 
be plainly to contradict my own mind, and 
to deny what I am sure to be the fact. It 
will not be, then, humility thus to act. I 
may acknowledge my proficiency, and yet 
such acknowledgment need not stamp me 
as guilty of Pride. 

Humility does not degrade or weaken us, 
and it does not hamper or hinder the free 
and vigorous use of the faculties of our 
soul. One who finds himself thus ham¬ 
pered in the discharge of his duty towards 
his fellow-men, suffers from too much con¬ 
sciousness, nervous excitement, weak 
health, want of experience, or natural tim¬ 
idity—but true Humility alone, will never 
confine or belittle him. That virtue which 


110 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


makes him great before God cannot, if gen¬ 
uine, make him little before man. 

True Humility is akin to the modesty 
which is such a graceful accompaniment to 
great merit. It lends beauty and radiance 
to every other virtue, while self-conceit 
and vain boasting make even rare worth 
vulgar, and rob it of half its charms. Thus 
while Vice punishes itself and defeats its 
own object, Virtue becomes, in one sense, 
its own reward, for the modest effort to 
hide its attractions wins for it additional 
admiration. 


VANITY. 


Ill 


CHAPTER XXII. 

VANITY. 

The difference between Pride and Vanity 
consists in this, that the former is an ex¬ 
travagant opinion of our own worthiness; 
the latter is an inordinate desire that others 
should share that opinion. When we are 
proud, we think too much of ourselves; 
when we are vain, we want our neighbor 
to think too much of us. Pride is the 
melancholy mood, Vanity the playful cra¬ 
ziness of self-love run mad. Pride is fear¬ 
ed, but scarcely despised by men ; Vanity 
is treated with ridicule and contempt, for 
in pride there is always something strong, 
and in vanity something weak. The work¬ 
ings of pride, too, are above the reach of 
vulgar natures, but vanity is easily de¬ 
tected, and there is nothing that pleases a 


112 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


yain creature so much as the opportu¬ 
nity of laughing at another vainer than 
himself. 

It is not wrong nor improper that we 
should maintain a decent self-respect, and 
hold a just and true estimate of our powers 
and capabilities. In like manner, it is not 
wrong to have a proper deference to the 
opinion of other men, and a desire to stand 
well with those among whom we live. The 
first Christians were advised so to live that 
they might have a favorable testimony 
from those who were outside. The desire 
to please our superiors, neighbors, and 
friends, is a legitimate stimulus to exertion, 
and we naturally crave the judgment of 
bystanders on our performances, so that 
we may correct our faults, if we have not 
been entirely successful, or, if successful, 
we may enjoy the meed of approbation to 
which we feel that we are honestly entitled. 

But if the desire for approbation is not 
kept within bounds, it runs into vanity, 


VANITY. 


113 


and becomes a source of weakness and un¬ 
happiness in the soul. The mind gradually 
loses sight of God, and of the great motive 
which should guide and sanctify all our 
actions, namely—the love of God and our 
eternal salvation. We get to live on hu¬ 
man applause, and we do not feel the in¬ 
ward peace and satisfaction that spring 
from a consciousness of having fulfilled our 
duty in a proper manner. We become 
jealous of the success of others, envious of 
the praise awarded them, and angry at our 
failure to gratify and astonish our new 
masters. In this manner the eccentric little 
passion of vainglory is gradually convert¬ 
ed into a scourge that chafes and vexes us 
continually, by falling upon the raw place 
of excited and uneasy self-conceit. There 
is perhaps no passion that so often pun¬ 
ishes its own folly as vanity. The stronger 
it grows, the more certainly it is doomed to 
disappointment. 

Vanity is sometimes supposed to be con- 
8 


114 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


fined to women and children, to classes of 
persons, in fact, from which we do not ex¬ 
pect proofs of lofty principle and dignified 
self-command. And yet men are very often 
as vain of their appearance, and of the 
impression they produce upon others, as 
woman is of her beauty, her accomplish¬ 
ments, or her jewelry and costly dresses. 
Men of rare gifts and distinguished ability, 
are liable to mar their undeniable merit by 
exhibitions of almost juvenile vanity. It is 
a strange and yet a true fact, that even men 
of genius, men destined to live forever in 
the literary or military annals of their 
country, have been noted for affectation and 
self-conceit, for demonstrations, in short, 
that prove the morbid desire to be no¬ 
ticed, admired, and made much of by their 
fellow-men. How necessary, then, it must 
be for persons of ordinary virtue and 
strength, to guard against the insidious in¬ 
roads of this dangerous enemy of spiritual 
improvement. 


VANITY. 


115 


It is not necessary to run into eccentricity 
or rudeness, in order to avoid the imputa¬ 
tion of vanity. The good Christian is not 
the man to put on an assumed and forced 
exterior. He is guileless and unaffected. 
He is at his ease, because he has nothing to 
conceal. He does not fear the judgments 
and opinions of the world, nor does he 
swerve from the path of duty to win its 
admiration or applause. At the same time, 
he does not wantonly brave and insult it, 
for such conduct would turn men away 
from virtue, rather than draw them gently 
to its practice. 


116 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

MODESTY. 

Whew Modesty is tlie outward expres¬ 
sion of heartfelt humility, it is precious to 
man, and valuable in the sight of God. It 
is then the composure and discipline of a 
person who aspires to no lofty honors, pre¬ 
ferring that others shall enjoy them, and 
seeking no prominent place, but occupying 
quietly and unobtrusively a secondary po¬ 
sition, as one best suited to him, and high 
enough for his deserts. 

When sincere and unaffected, modesty 
conveys a graceful tribute of deference and 
respect to the merits of others, which 
charms the eye and wins the heart even of 
the bold and the proud. True modesty is 
true humility put into practice. We find 
that modesty is not the virtue of persons 


MODESTY. 


117 


who are unreflecting and who are easily 
driven hither and thither by the untutored 
instincts and hasty impulses of their nature. 
On the contrary, the man of solid merit and 
ripe thought, is much more likely to be 
modest and retiring, than the man of trifling 
pursuits, of imperfect education, and un¬ 
mistakable mediocrity. 

This does not happen because the great 
man is ignorant of his great powers, or the 
good man of his good qualities. It happens 
because the more we advance in the knowl¬ 
edge of ourselves, and the more we dis¬ 
cover of natural gifts and abilities the more 
fully we understand our entire dependence 
upon God, and detect our own weakness, 
inconstancy, and proneness to evil. Man 
has two tempers, that which is lifted up 
and purified by the grace of God, and 
that which is base and corrupt; we can¬ 
not learn to appreciate and love the former 
without being abashed and ashamed of the 
meanness and littleness of the latter. The 


118 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


more we learn of the infinite majesty and 
goodness of God, the more we learn also 
of the littleness of self. 

Mere natural timidity and constitutional 
bashfulness are not the Christian virtue of 
modesty. They are not even natural virtues, 
nor virtues in any sense of the word. For 
he who is bashful to an overweening and 
excessive degree is ill at ease in his feelings ; 
behaves in an awkward and unpolished 
manner without intending it, perhaps with¬ 
out being aware of it, and disturbs others 
by his nervousness and want of self-pos¬ 
session. 

The disposition to shrink from public 
notice and remain, under all circumstances, 
aloof from public affairs whether of Church 
or State, often passes for modesty, but it 
may quite easily come into conflict with 
duty; for if God wishes us to assume a 
given responsibility, we are bound to obey 
Him, and assume it, and we are not by any 
means free to consult our own ease and 


MODESTY. 


119 


comfort, and shift the burden of service 
due to God, to our neighbor, or the commu¬ 
nity at large, on to the shoulders of others. 
Where modesty is merely assumed for the 
purpose of pleasing others, or winning 
their applause by seeming to depreciate 
ourselves; where it is resorted to as an 
excuse for laziness and cowardice, it is not 
virtue but vice, for it has no foundation in 
truth, and no connection with genuine 
humility. 

There are many kinds of mock modesty 
which the sincere Christian must guard 
against, but none more insidious nor more 
poisonous than that which serves as a mask 
for pride. This kind is accompanied with 
bitterness against others and envy of their 
merits and success. It is easily recognized 
as a counterfeit of true modesty. The gen¬ 
uine virtue, with all its fair flowers and 
wholesome fruits, springs from the hidden 
root of humility and draws its vitality from 
that source alone. 


120 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

PREJUDICE. 

There are souls gifted with, a natural 
candor that protects them against preju¬ 
dice, or, if they are influenced for a mo¬ 
ment, the prejudice fades rapidly away 
like a “breath from the smooth face of a 
mirror. Others of inferior polish are 
affected “by every passing impression, as 
the photographic plate is eaten into by 
every fugitive ray of light that falls upon 
its surface. He who wishes to be good 
and wise will jealously guard his mind 
against the approaches of prejudice, 
whether in reference to persons or things. 

Nature often gives to susceptible natures 
a quickness of insight that is, in certain re¬ 
lations, a better guide even than logical 
deduction. We observe this in women 


PREJUDICE. 


121 


particularly. They seem to feel with the 
quickness and unerring certainty of in¬ 
stinct the presence of anybody who should 
be avoided. A wife’s rapid perception is, 
in many practical matters of social and do¬ 
mestic life, a surer guide than the slower 
judgment of her husband. But this im¬ 
pressibility of the soul may lead us into 
wrong conclusions if we persist in adhering 
to our aversions, in spite of sufficient proof 
that we are doing our neighbor an injustice. 
Let instinct serve to put us on our guard, 
so that we may not be deceived by design¬ 
ing persons, but let us suspend our final 
judgment until we have taken time to ex¬ 
amine more carefully the character of those 
who come before us. We may not be able 
to overcome our likes and dislikes, even 
when formed instantaneously, but we can 
always avoid being unfair or unchristian 
even to those who have the misfortune not 
to attract our sympathy. We cannot ex¬ 
pect the world to be peopled with beings 


122 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


who are acceptable in all tilings to our 
tastes, and we nrnst not be severe upon 
others for what was not originally their 
fault, and what it is not now, perhaps, in 
their power to correct. 

He who adopts a prejudice as a maxim 
or rule of conduct, punishes himself for 
his inconsiderateness. He has taken a 
falsehood for a truth ; he has set down a 
fiction for a , fact. He will continually 
commit errors of judgment because he is 
guided by a false principle from the very 
start. He may take it into his head to 
consider a certain class of persons ignorant 
or vile, but they know for certain that he 
misjudges them; and all others who take 
the trouble to examine the facts of the case 
know that he is wrong and unjust. Truth 
has more friends than error ; and all the 
friends of truth will lose their respect for 
his wisdom and their belief in his candor. 

We are very apt to consider all men 
wicked who do not share the convictions 


PREJUDICE. 


123 


of our religious communion. We know 
that he whom we hold to he a sectarian is 
in error as far as his opinions go, and we 
hasten to the conclusion that he is vile in 
his conduct. If men were strictly logical, 
such would he the case. But nohody 
lives hy strict logical rule. People are 
better than their principles, and w'orse 
than their principles. There are people 
who have faith and who have no charity, 
and others who do charity though they 
have no faith. We are hound to believe 
that the acts of sinners are not all sins, for 
so it has been decreed hy the Church. 

We rarely take up unfounded prejudices 
against persons unless we allow some false 
maxim to guide our judgment. If we 
understand how far our duty extends, we 
shall know how to avoid being unjust. 
Let us not, in a mistaken zeal for the honor 
of Faith, go so far as to offend against 
Charity. The man who acts, in our judg¬ 
ment, wrongfully, may he as right as he 


124 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


knows how to be for the present. He may 
be honestly determined to do the right as 
far as he can know and see it. He belongs 
to himself and to God, not to you ; and 
when you harshly condemn him because 
he is acting the .Jew or the Heretic, you 
may be condemning a future Paul or Au¬ 
gustine. 


SOCIAL INTERCHANGE. 


125 


CHAPTER XXV. 

SOCIAL INTERCHANGE. 

There are few men of study, possessing 
clear and practical views, who will not be 
found willing to acknowledge that they 
have learned fully as much from conver¬ 
sation as from books. The great founders 
of philosophical schools in ancient Greece 
and Rome, trusted mainly to oral instruc¬ 
tion for imparting their learning to those 
who came to be their disciples. A book 
bodies forth whatever ideas it contains in 
a steady unimpassioned manner to the eye 
of the reader, and has the disadvantage of 
treating the subject under consideration in 
general terms, without the power of adapt¬ 
ing its explanation to the particular wants 
of the learner. 

But how different is an explanation re- 


126 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ceived from the lips of one whom we es¬ 
teem and love, who knows perfectly well 
how far we understand the subject, and in 
what particular points we are still in doubt 
and confusion, and who, patiently suiting 
his illustrations to our wants, places before 
us in living and breathing words the truth 
which we are seeking to master! 

There is a further advantage in conversa¬ 
tion beyond that of hearing another talk, 
and it consists in this: that we hear our¬ 
selves talk, and we thus draw from our 
mind and explain, perforce, in clear and 
intelligible language, the difficulty that 
very often is solved as soon as it is dis¬ 
tinctly stated. 

We are enabled to clear up and under¬ 
stand more accurately that which we al¬ 
ready know, and the activity of a mind 
accustomed to thought will carry our 
knowledge still further in advance, and 
make us see things that we did not see dis¬ 
tinctly until we were encouraged to put 


SOCIAL IHTERCHANGE. 


127 


our crude and imperfect reflections into 
words and phrases clear and forcible 
enough to be understood by another. The 
man who pours forth the vitality and vigor 
of his mind through his pen, must end 
after a certain period of time, by laying 
down his jaded instrument in utter physi¬ 
cal weariness. But who ever grows weary 
or even less fresh and inventive, when en¬ 
gaged in social interchange with learned 
and virtuous friends, particularly, if among 
bright and healthy scenes, amid the broad 
fields, the laughing flowers, the brown 
forests of nature’s open domain, or afloat 
upon the rippling waters, or again among 
the glorious green hills, where fresh and 
pure breezes fan the weary temples of 
the professional man, and the overworked 
scholar escaped from the smoke, the wealth, 
and the noise of the metropolis ? 

It is on occasions like these that one feels 
the inward wish: O! to sit and listen among 
such surroundings to Plato, the Pagan sage 


128 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


with a Christian sonl; to Jerome, the 
terse, elegant scholar; to Augustine, the 
affluent and eloquent doctor ; to Thomas of 
Aquin, the exact and trenchant master, 
who not only refuted error hut made it 
contemptible ; or to amiable St. Francis de 
Sales, whom no one could look upon with¬ 
out loving him. O ! for an hour with that, 
blessed man, small in stature, a giant in 
energy, Vincent de Paul, the apostle of 
charity ! What a rare delight it would be 
if we could hear him talk! He charmed 
the king, the court, the camp, the clergy, 
the schools, the cities, the towns of France. 
He charmed equally ladies, wits, poets, 
politicians, sick patients, abandoned wom¬ 
en, galley-slaves, and children of every 
age and size. O ! for the eloquence of such 
a tongue ; O ! for the secret of its power, 
the effects of which time seems unable to 
impair or destroy. 

A truce, however, to these fond aspira¬ 
tions, which arise so naturally in the heart 


SOCIAL INTERCHANGE. 


129 


of a devout Catholic. God chooses His 
own instruments, and does His work at 
His own time in His own wise way. Had 
we lived in the middle ages, or in the days 
of chivalry, it might have been our duty to 
serve Him in a coat of mail and with a long 
sword. Let us do our best now to render 
the homage we owe to Him, in accordance 
with the spirit of our age, and in the man¬ 
ner best calculated to impress favorably 
the neighbors among whom we live. Our 
tongue is sacred; let it never be used in 
any way unworthy of our Christian pro¬ 
fession. 


9 


130 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

FAULTS OF CONVERSATION. 

Conversation lias been flowing down 
through the ages of time like a broad 
stream, bearing along with it the knowl¬ 
edge, wit, errors, and follies of the human 
race. It has supplied materials for thou¬ 
sands of books, and as books have made 
their appearance, it has absorbed their 
chief points, making them known to mil¬ 
lions beside their readers. Occasionally 
a master mind will leave its impress on 
conversation, giving it some quaint form 
of expression, some proverbial utterance, 
some simple comparison, or striking popu¬ 
lar illustration, which people do not at¬ 
tempt to change, because it seems to say 
what all wish to express, so much better 
than any one is able to express it. In this 


FAULTS OF CONVERSATION. 


131 


manner we all use, perhaps without know¬ 
ing it, many phrases from the Bible, and 
many sayings of Shakspeare’s. 

The mission of Conversation, embracing 
as it does, the whole interchange of ideas 
between men, 4s of such universal and high 
importance, that the moralist cannot but 
grieve over its many short-comings, and 
the wrong purposes to which it is turned. 
As the river that flows through a large city 
serves as a receptacle for all the refuse 
matter of every dwelling, so conversation 
serves to receive all the vile, unjust, and 
unwholesome thoughts and imaginings of 
every mind. Reputations and good names 
go down in its broad tide as the remains of 
the dead and the drowned are concealed 
beyond detection in the dark-flowing 
waters of the river. General intercourse 
gives security and additional confidence to 
those who would not dare to unfold their 
malice, and vent their spleen while dis¬ 
coursing with one respectable person alone. 


132 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Gossip is the bane of conversation, for it 
is the name under which injustice makes 
her entrance into society. There is an ele¬ 
ment in the breast of the most civilized 
communities, even in times of great refine¬ 
ment, that explains how man may, under 
certain circumstances, become a cannibal. 
It is exhibited in the turns our humor 
takes in conversation. We are not ill- 
natured, nor disposed to lay a straw in the 
way of any one who has not injured us, 
and yet when spurred on by the stimulus 
of talking and being talked to, we can 
bring ourselves to mimic, revile, and mis¬ 
represent others, traduce and destroy their 
good name, reveal their secrets, and pro¬ 
claim their faults; and all this merely to 
follow the lead of others, or for the sake of 
appearing facetious and amusing, or for 
the purpose of building up ourselves by 
running down those whom in our hearts 
we know and believe to be better than we 


are. 


FAULTS OF CONVERSATION. 


133 


Now what one poor author can do to 
remedy this great evil, I am anxious to do, 
yet I feel that I must not attempt too much. 
I therefore say nothing about irreligious or 
indecent talk, but seize merely upon gos¬ 
sip as a principal corrupter of pleasant and 
rational conversation, and I seek to enlist 
my readers against its bold and injurious 
advances. Why does it abuse the absent; 
why does it go on as though licensed to 
consider that they are always in the wrong ? 
It gives forth its ill-natured sayings, and 
repeats its rash judgments, and amuses it¬ 
self at the expense of the absent, because 
they can offer no defence or resistance. 

Would it speak as it does of an absent 
lady if she were present, if her husband, 
her son, her lover were within hearing to 
resent the aspersion thus cast upon her fair 
name \ Certainly not. 

But as the gossip attacks the absent be¬ 
cause the absent cannot defend himself or 
herself, shall not we, dear readers, form a so- 


184 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ciety to assist the weak and the persecuted ? 
Shall we not enter into a compact to defend 
those who cannot defend themselves ? Let 
us answer as a love of fair play suggests. 
If we are at all influenced by regard for 
Christian charity, let us remember that it 
takes two to carry on a conversation against 
our neighbor, and that if our visitor is 
guilty of being a gossip, a false witness, or 
a detractor, we are also guilty by consent¬ 
ing to officiate as listeners. 

It is very old-fashioned, and very much 
of a truism for you to say to your gossiping 
visitor: “ Well, every one has his faults,’’ 
or “ we are all liable to make mistakes 
but you will act much better stopping un¬ 
charitable talk by repeating these homely 
maxims of morality, than allowing your 
friends during, a morning call to destroy 
the character of some absent person with 
whom you are both acquainted. 

You need not of course be over scrupu¬ 
lous, or morbidly fastidious in this regard. 


FAULTS OF CONVERSATION. 


135 


If any man or woman publicly and boldly 
violate tlie proprieties of life and society, 
you may talk about them ; you have the 
right to do so. You may condemn their 
course so as to deter others from following 
an improper or illegal example. 

But when your own friends are spoken 
of you must stand by them. They have 
their faults doubtless as you have, but 
your parlor must not be made a free ground 
to hold them up to derision and contempt. 
Protect their good name if it can be done ; 
give them the benefit of an honest inten¬ 
tion, if it is not impossible, and if }^ou posi¬ 
tively think that they are really bad people, 
have nothing to do with them, and do not 
allow their affairs to be talked about in 
your house. 

In a word, dear Christian reader, where 
you find conversation to be conducted in a 
kind, charitable, and refined manner, take 
your part in it, for it will improve you 
both in mind and in heart; where you find 


136 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


that it is not so conducted, try to correct its 
want of charity, and if you cannot succeed, 
then you will do well to cultivate silence, 
and the companionship of your own 
thoughts. 


TESTS OF CHARACTER. 


137 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

TESTS ce CHARACTER. 

Some persons are by nature and instinct 
good judges of character, without being 
able to give any definite rules by which 
they arrive at their judgments. They seem 
to feel the presence or absence of given 
qualities in the persons with whom they 
come in contact, as fine organizations feel 
dampness or dryness, and excess or defect 
of oxygen in the atmosphere. Neverthe¬ 
less there are some rules that hold good 
in studying human nature, and may assist 
us in arriving at a correct estimate of the 
merits and demerits of the characters which 
we are trying to understand. 

When we find consistency in a man, we 
find a trait that renders a less gifted person 
more satisfactory to deal with, than one 


138 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


with even far greater advantages. It is 
high praise to say especially of a superior, 
that, go to him when you may, you will 
find him always the same. Fickleness, on 
the contrary, disturbs and discourages you, 
and defeats all your calculations. The 
fickle person may have luminous qualities, 
but they are like the sun overcast by 
clouds and fogs, bright and genial at one 
moment and hidden away out of sight at 
the next. Let each one reflect how unsatis¬ 
factory and disagreeable he finds it to deal 
with a character which is influenced by 
humor, fancy, or nervous irritability, and 
endeavor to spare his neighbor the like 
infliction. 

There are two traits that are the objects 
of universal admiration, that no one can 
help esteeming very highly, firmness on 
the one hand and amiability on the other. 
We look up to the man of firm and tried 
virtue, and we feel that we can put our 
trust in him without danger of deception. 


TESTS OF CHARACTER. 139 

He is the man we would choose for a leader, 
under whose guidance we feel that we 
could accomplish great things for a good 
and noble cause. But when we meet one 
who is pleasing in conversation, gentle 
and relined in manner, incapable of giving 
pain to another without feeling it with 
double poignancy himself, affable and 
obliging, anxious to make all around him 
cheerful and happy even at the expense 
of inconvenience to himself, he wins us 
in another way, drawing to himself our 
love and affection even before our rea¬ 
son has had time to weigh his virtues or 
faults. 

Either of these natures seemingly op¬ 
posed to each other conquers our unfeigned 
regard, but perhaps no character is so at¬ 
tractive or so sure to make friends as that 
in which we find these apparently opposite 
traits united. There is something piquant 
and unexpected in such a union, and as 
our esteem and affection are both appealed 


140 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


to, we grow strongly attached to a person 
thus variously gifted. 

There are persons who affect to despise 
gentleness as weakness, and simplicity as 
ignorance, and yet experience teaches us 
that great men, and even great military 
commanders, gifted with lion-like energy 
and bravery when engaged in action, are 
gentle and undemonstrative in private life ; 
and genuine simplicity is far more fre¬ 
quently the accompaniment of genius than 
of mediocrity. 

There is a certain kindness in many per¬ 
sons of broad sympathies which pervades 
their whole nature, as sunlight pervades 
clear water. They never begin by suspect¬ 
ing any thing wrong; their first impulse is 
to give aid whenever it is asked, and take 
trouble in behalf of any one represented to 
be in want. They love children, and chil¬ 
dren love them, for they recognize them as 
friends by means of that unaccountable 
philosophy by which children can always 


TESTS OF CIIAKACTEE. 


141 


tell who likes them, and who only pretends 
to like them. In short, this class of char¬ 
acters love everybody and every thing 
around them, and thus the sight of any one 
suffering, fills them with pity and regret. 

There is the reverse character to this— 
hard, suspicious, unsympathetic. Such a 
person trusts no one without proofs that 
there is no danger of deception. He does 
not readily make known his feelings, and 
if moved, is rather ashamed of it than 
otherwise. He has few friends, and even 
when his acts are kind, he takes no pains 
to make his manner correspond with them. 
Persons of this nature should cultivate a 
high and abiding sense of justice, and make 
that virtue their guide through life. The 
man who forms the habit of asking himself 
frequently, “ Am I acting justly ?” will not 
be in danger of wronging his fellow-man, 
even though his instincts should be rather 
stern than tender, and his manners wanting 
somewhat in the softer graces which distin- 


142 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


guish his more humane and large-hearted 
neighbor. 

There are certain vices which alone suffice 
to mar a man’s nature, rendering it almost 
entirely unproductive of good, and well- 
nigh insensible to the genial influences of 
Christianity. Of these I will merely men¬ 
tion Avarice, Cruelty, and Pride. 

Avarice, sooner perhaps than any other 
vice, turns the soft human heart into a 
stone. It substitutes the worship of the 
golden calf for that of the true God, and its 
love of self excludes all consideration for 
our neighbor. Cruelty, when deliberate 
and habitual, excludes every trait and 
quality in our nature, that the grace of God 
can take hold of, to refine and elevate it. It 
reduces man to the condition which the in¬ 
spired writer mentioned as the lowest depth 
of human depravity, when he reproached 
the corrupt heathen as being “without 
affection” for either God or man. Pride 
teaches man, in his blindness, to glory in 


TESTS OF CHARACTER. 1-u> 

what debases him, and to be ashamed only 
of his good qualities. Like the poor luna 
tic, he feels himself a king, because he is 
crowned with straw ; and while he despises 
honest poverty, noble exertion, and decent 
labor, he is not ashamed to resort to false¬ 
hood and fraud for the purpose of living 
on society, and eking out an inglorious 
existence. Let us endeavor to stifle the 
earliest manifestations of these chilling and 
disastrous vices. Let us oppose liberality 
to avarice, charity to cruelty, and true 
humility to false pride. 

To judge whether a man is addicted or 
not to certain failings, it is a useful plan to 
watch the play of his consciousness, which 
easily betrays him, unless he is very much 
on his guard. One who hears his pet fail¬ 
ings made the subject of conversation, can 
hardly sit and listen unmoved, but the fact 
that he is conscious and anxious, shows it¬ 
self in tortuous and seemingly contradictory 
ways. 


144 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


He who volunteers a defence of himself 
before he is accused, proves that his con¬ 
science is guilty, and that he feels a defence 
necessary. 

He who displays unusual readiness to 
engage in discussing certain indelicate sub¬ 
jects, who manifests curiosity in reference 
to them, who easily laughs and blushes 
when they are brought up, gives reason to 
suspect that he often dwells upon such 
subjects in his own thoughts. 

He who fiercely and unseasonably de¬ 
nounces the weak and the fallen, may do it 
to ward off suspicion from himself. He 
does not speak from true and honest zeal, 
for true and honest zeal is not headlong, 
but temperate and discreet. 

He who inveighs violently against pride, 
avarice, intemperance, incontinency, neg¬ 
lect of religion, or any other sin, may be 
all the time endeavoring to screen himself, 
or to ward off censure which he knows he 
deserves. This sort of heated and angry 


TESTS OF CHARACTER. 


145 


denunciation, gives good ground to suspect 
that the denouncer is personally concerned 
in the subject he is talking about, too 
much concerned, in fact, to be altogether 
innocent. 

Probably the most difficult to reclaim of 
all transgressors, is a man without truth, 
and a woman without affection. A man 
who is habitually and wilfully untrue, has 
lost all respect for any outward influence 
that might reclaim him, and he is not likely 
to be reclaimed by any influence from with¬ 
in, for he has lost all respect for himself. 
A woman will misstate facts where her 
feelings are warmly enlisted, but her devo¬ 
tion saves her from selfishness and utter 
degradation. But you meet a monster in 
the moral world whenever you happen to 
come across a man who has no conscience, 
or a woman who has no heart. 

10 


146 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

TRUTH. 

It is a happy moment in a man’s life, 
when he learns to regard Truth not merely 
as an object of interest or curiosity, but as 
the broad and strong foundation of the 
world of intelligence. Until this point is 
reached, neither the mind nor the heart can 
make any progress towards wisdom and 
happiness. Yet the conditions for acqui¬ 
ring this treasure are very simple, for all 
that is necessary, is to have a sincere esteem 
for the truth, and to love it as it deserves. 

In order to understand what are the mo¬ 
tives for holding truth in high esteem, let 
us begin by trying to form an adequate 
conception of its greatness. Let us at once 
get rid of the fallacy that there is more than 
one truth. God does not teach one truth 


TRUTH. 


147 


and reason another, for God created reason, 
and could put in its possession no other 
truth except that known to the Divine 
mind. 

Rational truth is like beautiful scenery, 
looked down upon from the summit of a 
lofty mountain, and revealed truth like the 
same scenery looked up at from the bosom 
of the valley beneath. In both cases the 
same work of God is the object of admira¬ 
tion, but as the point of view is different, 
the same sight is presented under different 
lights and shades, and with different salient 
attractions, both in the particular and gen¬ 
eral effect of the picture. But truth is one ; 
there are no two or several truths opposed 
one to the other. It exists of its own right, 
and in infinite perfection before any adum¬ 
bration of it can be thrown upon the canvas 
of the human mind, or any image upon the 
retina of the human eye. It reigns in the 
infinite intelligence of the Almighty, and is 
eternal, unchangeable, necessary, and uni 


148 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


yersal. But the poorest and most illiterate 
child of God, who seizes upon a simple ray 
of truth, just enough it may be to make 
him believe and hope in his Maker, holds 
communion with all the immense light and 
power that satisfy the boundless mind of 
the Supreme Being himself. 

While we are thus trying to form a high 
and noble estimate of Truth, let us for a 
moment pause to examine the adversary 
that would gainsay the excellencies we 
have attributed to our favorite virtue. This 
enemy is Error. We know what is the 
office of Error, namely, to oppose and defeat 
the Truth when it is able to do so. But 
with what success? With only the poor 
success of darkness, the enemy of light, that 
melts away and vanishes before the earliest 
beams of the rising sun. It is of the very 
essence and nature of Truth to be always 
the same, while Error cannot be constant, 
but must change with the caprices and 
preferences of fickle human nature. 


i 


TRUTH. 


149 


There is nothing that the human soul de¬ 
sires more earnestly than truth, and there is 
no loss under which it sutlers more than the 
loss of truth. We may reduce all reasons 
for esteeming it to the one fact, that God 
values it more than any other of His Divine 
perfections. Eternal Truth is His most 
“beautiful name. There may be on the part 
of a naturally well-disposed man an occa¬ 
sional exercise of charity, forbearance, or 
veneration, but there is no lasting virtue 
without truth, and he who has lost it has 
lost, or is in imminent danger of losing, 
honor, integrity, veracity, and trust-wor¬ 
thiness, both before God and his fellow- 
men. 

The reasons why we should love truth 
are, that it is the primary object of the Di¬ 
vine Intelligence, and the fairest object 
presented to Infinite Love itself. As a 
consequence, it is the connecting link be¬ 
tween every virtue and God. We cannot 
conceive of any condition of our mind how- 


150 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ever sublime, or of our heart however 
devoted, capable of pleasing God unless 
pervaded and directed by truth. A sane 
mind and a sound heart cannot admire or 
love any object however pleasing other¬ 
wise, if the truth is not in it. Truth is the 
essence of right, goodness, beauty, and 
strength, in all their unperverted relations, 
and where truth is not, there is error, cor¬ 
ruption, and death. 

There are numberless hindrances to the 
acquisition of truth, which is the health of 
the soul, just as there are numberless 
causes of injury to the health of the body. 
Truth does not come to dwell with those 
who are wanting in sincerity, generosity, 
or self-sacrifice. Those who are obstinate, 
prejudiced, and wrong-headed, will be 
misled and deceived by vain assumption 
and shallow pretence, whereas, they would 
be sure to lay hold on right principles, if 
they were but fair-minded and docile. 
Those who will not give to the investiga- 


TRUTH. 


151 


tion of truth the time and the thought that 
they freely bestow upon crther affairs of 
grave importance, must not complain if 
their brief and desultory search is barren 
of results. 

Finally, men who give themselves up to 
the indulgence of their passions cannot 
seek the truth with success. They are pre¬ 
occupied and interested to that extent, that 
they know themselves to be unfit for re¬ 
searches demanding calm thought and 
freedom from excitement. Besides, the 
conscience of a devotee of pleasure warns 
him that he is wrong in the life he leads; 
and if he makes light of this plain and com¬ 
mon-sense truth, how can he hope to go on 
and learn further truths that belong to a 
higher and purer order of sentiment and 
reflection'4 It would indeed be difficult, 
and a rare gift of divine grace. 

We conclude by a word of advice to those 
who have, through God’s mercy, already 
received the truth. Do not conceal it! Do 


152 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


not mar its work by yonr ill-judged efforts 
to help and protect it. Place Truth fairly 
before men, and she will take care of her¬ 
self. She is stronger than they are, fear 
nothing for her. Truth is great, and will 
prevail; Error is weak, and sure to fall. 

Error is like a figure of plaster that loses 
its brightness unless carefully guarded in¬ 
doors. Exposure to the air and the sun 
chips and cracks it, and rough weather 
grinds it to powder. But Truth, like a 
bronze statue, resists the elements for cen¬ 
turies, and suffers only from the dust that 
darkens its surface, leaving its body sound 
and uninj ured. 


THE MISSION OF LAYMEN. 


153 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE MISSION OF LAYMEN. 

The nations of modern Europe were 
civilized and taught science and art by the 
clergy. The Popes civilized the North¬ 
men, who settled down in Italy; the 
Bishops made France, “as bees make a 
hive Spain, Great Britain, and Germany 
were led from barbarism to culture by the 
priesthood, and chiefly by the zeal and 
learning of the Monastic Orders. In those 
days the clergy held exclusive possession 
of the sciences of theology and philosophy, 
not only, but they alone knew pretty 
much all that was known of medicine, 
jurisprudence, and belles-lettres. 

Learning of every kind was so identified 
with the priesthood, that a cleric or clerk, 
meant indiscriminately a man entitled to 


154 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


wear the priestly gown or a man who knew 
how to read, as among the ancient Romans 
Yates meant, interchangeably, a Prophet 
or a Poet. 

But society never stands still. As time 
rolled on new professions were formed; 
fighting ceased to be the only occupation 
of the laity, and knowledge ceased to be 
the exclusive property of the clergy. One 
department after another of Art and Science 
opened its doors to secular youth. The 
great Universities were built, and their por¬ 
tals were thronged by aspirants for classical 
and scientific instruction from every part 
of the world. Many branches of learning, 
particularly the natural sciences, passed 
entirely from the hands of the clergy, and 
gradually our disciples became willing and 
able in many things to teach their old 
masters. 

In course of time conflicting ideas of 
Progress and Conservatism, especially in 
reference to the principles of Government, 


THE MISSION OF LAYMEN. 


155 


separated the old school and the new ; the 
perilous experiment of dissevering Theo¬ 
logy and Philosophy was tried. The ulti¬ 
mate results of this new experiment were 
seen and felt in the great revulsion of 
European thought which began in Eng¬ 
land, overspread more or less the whole 
Continent, and culminated in what is called, 
not with entire accuracy, the French Re¬ 
volution. That fearful storm that left its 
bloody imprint on every acre of the fan- 
land of France effected great good, we are 
told, in clearing the foggy atmosphere, and 
floating away out of sight many old abuses 
and relics of barbarism. One thing it cer¬ 
tainly did effect; it taught the human race 
what Philosophy is likely to accomplish, 
when set entirely free from the guidance 
and guardianship of Divine Revelation. 
There is no nation that would be willing to 
see the experiment tried over again, or 
think itself benefited by any effort to bring 
about its repetition. 


156 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Society did for a time most effectually 
rid itself, by a summary process, of its old 
instructors, the priests. It got rid at the 
same time of the God whom the priesthood 
were appointed to represent, and even set 
up a sensual idol, strangely enough called 
the Goddess of Reason. 

This double riddance did not add to the 
happiness of society. The sons of the men 
of 1792 warned by the yain efforts, the ill 
success, and the unhappiness of their sires, 
ceased to combat Religion and legitimate 
Government, however much they might 
oppose the abuses and the impositions per¬ 
petuated by human passion, in the name 
of both. 

There is undoubtedly at the present 
time an effort being made, a movement go¬ 
ing on, which have for their object the 
reconciliation of the pupils and their old 
masters, the priesthood and the people—• 
and this effort has for its supporters the 
majority of all the good men in the world. 


THE MISSION OF LAYMEN. 


157 


That this movement will ultimately prove 
a success, there can he no doubt, for it has 
in its favor both truth and justice, and 
the common sense of all nations. It is 
equally clear that both the priesthood and 
the people will gain by establishing be¬ 
tween themselves good and permanent 
understanding. 

Society can be self-governing ; it can pos¬ 
sess all the polish that study has for its 
object to impart; it can enjoy all the bene¬ 
fits of scientific discovery, for its knowl¬ 
edge is not a forbidden fruit. One can be 
a layman in our day without being an ene¬ 
my of Religion. Society can be laic with¬ 
out being or becoming, thereby, infidel. 
As the ruling body we have never asked 
society not to become enlightened. On 
the contrary, we taught the laity all they 
know; we found them children and we 
made them men. Perhaps we were timid 
and chary in intrusting them with all the 
powers and all the freedom of action to 


158 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


•which they considered themselves entitled 
in virtue of their newly acquired manly 
estate. Be this as it may, they have now 
assumed all such powers, and successfully 
asserted all such freedom; and, with the 
blessing of God, whatever estrangement 
was caused between us by the inaugura¬ 
tion of this new state of things has, par¬ 
tially at least, passed away. 

Now, then, is the time for us to make a 
new announcement of duty, and for the 
laity to listen to it; for it is too clear to 
admit of doubt or cavil. It is our right 
and our obligation to remind them that 
with their extended power and the security 
of its free exercise, new and sacred duties 
are laid upon their shoulders by Him from 
whom cometh all power and all rightful 
liberty. The Laity have a mission to fulfil 
in virtue of the exalted position which they 
now occupy in Christian society. This mis¬ 
sion can only be accomplished by the con¬ 
scientious use of their increased abilities 


THE MISSION OF LAYMEN. 


159 


and efficiency. They must save the world, 
each his own portion of it, from error not 
onty, but from vice. They must support 
the teachings of Religion, because it is 
God’s truth. God’s truth in revelation 
will never contradict God’s truth in nature. 
Beginning each by saving himself from the 
consequences not only of Ignorance, but 
also of Self-indulgence, he must teach by 
his example what he teaches by his word. 
Let him be a free man—free not only from 
unjust and tyrannical laws, but from igno¬ 
ble habits ; from the fear of the World’s 
malignant opinions; from the seduction 
and enslavement of the Flesh; from the 
pride and falsity of the Devil. 

All knowledge that does not teach us to 
save our souls, is worse than useless. All 
manhood that does not assist us to curb 
our passions and rise superior to ourselves 
is a shallow pretence. All wealth, posi¬ 
tion, and influence that are turned against 
the needy, the weak, and the deserving 


160 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


poor, are unworthy of true manhood. 
When laymen were children it was enough 
for them to have the virtues that belong to 
children. Now they are men. On their 
integrity, honesty, and goodness, is built 
the State and its Government, whatever 
may be its political form. The national 
wealth, commercial enterprise, military re¬ 
nown, and material greatness of a country 
do not strengthen its foundations, but in¬ 
crease the burden laid upon them. Grow¬ 
ing responsibilities must be accompanied 
by growing virtue, or the country will fall 
by its own weight. 

These few reflections point out the mis¬ 
sion of the laity. Public greatness must 
rest upon private worth, as the outward 
strength and splendor of a noble building 
rest upon foundation-stones that lie un¬ 
seen but solid in their lowly bed. 


RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 


161 


CHAPTER XXX. 

RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 

Every religious system contains some 
truth, and is better than no religion. A 
system containing no truth at all would 
fail to win the attention and acquiescence 
of the people to whom it is addressed. 
Even corrupt systems, if passing for re¬ 
ligions, must have some truth to recom¬ 
mend them. They must, furthermore, be 
some sort of an advance on the creed that 
preceded them. We are astonished that 
Mahomedanism should have enlisted so 
many nations of the East in its train, per¬ 
mitting as it does so much of error, cruelty, 
and debasing self-indulgence. And yet 
the Koran was a wonderful improvement 
on the scanty religious knowledge of the 
fierce tribes whom it marshalled under the 
11 


162 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


folds of its victorious banner. It taught 
them to worship one God, and to practice 
obedience, faithfulness, frugality, and 
many other simple virtues of which they 
were previously ignorant. 

Men are constantly changing, not only 
in their outward habits and occupations, 
but in their opinions also, and in the views 
they take of their duties. The most hope¬ 
less spiritual disposition of human souls is 
not that which urges them on restlessly 
from one error to another, and from one 
partial truth to another, but that which 
causes them to sink hopelessly down into 
apathy and dejection, and to give up in¬ 
quiry altogether. We may always have 
hope for the man who values live thought, 
for he is a live man although a mistaken 
one, and life tends toward truth. We may 
not see how he is to get over his blindness 
and his misguided zeal, but God will bring 
him through them all in His own good 
time. 


RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 


163 


We are very apt to look forth from our 
fixed seat on the rock, of truth and to blame 
those who are changing about, tossed by 
the winds and waves of error first in one 
direction and then in another. But we do 
not understand their difficulties. Rest for 
us is safety, rest for them would be death. 
While they keep changing it is not certain 
that they will change for the worse ; there 
are many chances of their changing for the 
better. 

Let us apply this view of the case not to 
nations and countries, but to individuals 
in the society to which we belong. Its 
members, even though in error, are daily 
and hourly subject to the influences of the 
Christian Religion. They know all the 
principal truths that the Church of God 
teaches; they know the Commandments 
of God as He taught them ; they know the 
prayers that the Saviour and His Apostles 
told us to recite; they see the workings 
of Charity, and feel the effects of Christian 


164 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


public opinion. Besides all this, they are 
often reached and moved by the light and 
warmth of the Grace that precedes virtuous 
action, quickening those impulses that are 
naturally good sufficiently, to elevate the 
soul to something still higher and better. 
These things give us ample reason to hope 
for the gradual progress and ultimate suc¬ 
cess of very many souls, of all who will 
not deliberately resist the will of God. 

Truth adapts itself to all conditions of 
men, and the religious life can be lived by 
every human soul that comes to the knowl¬ 
edge of it. The opportunities for acquiring 
this knowledge are ample. Every preju¬ 
dice abandoned is a step forward; every 
unkind feeling overcome, every distorted 
view of history corrected, every particle of 
information acquired, is a means of grace 
that may finally lead the docile mind and 
heart into full possession of the truth as 
God made it, and revealed it to man. 

He who has at heart the interests of re- 


RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 


165 


ligion, will therefore be much more use¬ 
fully employed when he helps to develop 
the germs of truth in his neighbor, than 
when he blames him for the errors that 
happen to be mixed up with them. 


166 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

DIFFICULTIES OF LAYMEN. 

Persons dedicated to the service of God 
in a religious life, are constantly reminded 
of their duties "by the objects that surround 
them, and the occupations that engage their 
attention. Their danger lies in becoming 
too familiar with holy things. But the 
layman is not thus reminded of his duty ; 
his business is in the world and with the 
world. It requires a strong resolution to 
keep the interests of religion before his 
mind. His danger lies in becoming un¬ 
familiar with holy things. 

There is a constant struggle going on in 
the breast of the good Christian layman 
against the world, which is unceasingly 
encroaching upon him. He is like a trav 
eller along the snowy paths of the Alps, 


DIFFICULTIES OF LAYMEN. 


167 


who is surrounded by a cold atmosphere, 
that has the effect of making him drowsy. 
No matter how resolute may be the efforts 
of the traveller to throw off the sleepiness 
that is coming upon him, the fatal influence 
is still there. Constant resistance is the 
price of safety, for if he gives way for a 
single moment he will fall asleep. Onward 
he must press in spite of heavy eyelids, 
drooping head, and dragging footsteps— 
onward, without delay and without rest, 
under pain of sleep, and sleep for him is 
certain death. So does the lethargy and 
forgetfulness of the world overshadow the 
spirit of the Christian, and few resist 
its encroachments; they repose in mis¬ 
taken security, and their sleep is spiritual 
death. 

It seems a strange thing to those who 
are earnestly devout in the practice of their 
religion, that so many laymen should find 
such practice a hardship or a difficulty at 
all. Let us confine ourselves here to what 


168 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


is matter of strict obligation, such as private 
prayer and recollection, according to tbe 
spiritual necessities of each, attendance at 
public worship on the days prescribed by 
the Church, reasonable frequency in ap¬ 
proaching the Sacraments, &c. When 
these duties are urged as indispensable, 
even as conditions of living membership in 
the Church, numberless excuses are heard, 
some of them contradictory, all of them 
mean and based on falsehood. One man 
exclaims that their fulfilment is impossible. 
He speaks untruly f for God requires im¬ 
possible things of no one; and he speaks 
ignorantly, for as he has never fairly tried 
to fulfil them, he has no experience to bring 
in evidence. 

But he is too busy to attend. It is pos¬ 
sible that one may have business or duties 
of charity, which take up his time to such 
an extent, as to prevent his attending to 
certain religious duties at certain times. 
But no one is always so busy as never to 


1 


-L 

DIFFICULTIES OF LAYMEN. 169 

be able to attend to any of his religious 
obligations. 

Another cannot bring his mind to bear 
on the subject at the present time, but will 
attend by and by. Let him then take a 
little time and make up his mind if he is 
in earnest. But if he delays month after 
month and year after year he is only play¬ 
ing a game of deception. As to attending 
by and by, it is simply the vulgar resource 
of procrastination, the thief of time, the 
enemy of noble and earnest exertion, the 
unthrifty maxim of never doing to-day 
what can be put off until to-morrow. 

Still another has too much respect for 
the Sacraments, to think’ of approaching 
them until after a long and serious pre¬ 
paration. The excuse is only a subterfuge. 
The Sacraments were instituted for men 
with all their difficulties around them. 
Good will and ready obedience is what is 
wanted, not length of time or preparation. 
You &re not expected to become holy and 


170 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


then go to the Sacraments, hut to go to the 
Sacraments and thus secure aid for your 
sanctification. 

On hearing the kind of reasoning em¬ 
braced in these excuses, one cannot help 
wondering what sort of results a merchant, 
magistrate, lawyer, physician, artist, lite¬ 
rary, or military man would exhibit, if he 
were to manage his business the way he 
does his religion. This sort of manage¬ 
ment would be pretty sure to break a man 
down in any kind of business, and it is 
pretty sure to break him down in his 
Christianity. The world generally absorbs 
all his faculties and all his energies, and 
after a while he gives up trying the impos¬ 
sible task of serving two masters; he fol¬ 
lows the crowd, the crowd follows the 
world, and the world leads them on to for¬ 
getfulness, sleep, and death. 

We might speak here of the miserable 
system of offsetting charity and money¬ 
giving against the neglect of Christian 


DIFFICULTIES OF LAYMEN. 


171 


duty; the compromise attempted with con¬ 
science, by railing against vices we are not 
inclined to, as an excuse for indulging in 
those we have a mind to; and all those 
plans of counterbalance and compensation, 
the use of which presents such a strange 
chapter in the history of poor human na¬ 
ture. Their object is to help a man to 
deceive others, and perhaps himself, for¬ 
getting, all the while, that he is moving 
and acting in the presence of the Eternal 
Judge, who can neither deceive nor be 
deceived. 

We close this chapter with a brief ad¬ 
vice to the Christian layman. Call things 
by their own names, look at them in their 
true light, and do not pretend to be doing 
right, when you know you are doing 
wrong. Put yourself manfully on the side 
of your duty, and not on the side of the 
excuse. Plead the cause of Justice and 
Truth, not of Procrastination and Sloth. 
With your feet upon paltry excuses, your 


172 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


eye on the Star of Duty, God Iby yonr side, 
and honesty in yonr heart, you will go 
easily and happily on, and the observance 
that seemed to you difficult and irksome, 
will become a pleasure and a consolation. 


RELIGIOUS MATURITY. 


173 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

RELIGIOUS MATURITY. 

There is in the religions as in the natu¬ 
ral life, a period of childhood and a period 
of manhood, and we are just as unreason¬ 
able when we quarrel with the child for 
not being a man, as we would be, were we 
to quarrel with the man for being no 
longer a child. The seed of faith lies in 
the bosom of the soul for years unripened 
and undeveloped, from the time of bap¬ 
tism until the use of reason; and reason 
herself may be employed for years, from 
her early dawn until the mind is ripe and 
strong, before it can fully understand the 
precious gift placed in its keeping by the 
mercy of Heaven. 

It is a healthy occupation for the child 
to run at will among the beauties of nature, 


174 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


and enjoy the innocent pleasure they im¬ 
part, before the time arrives for attending 
to duties and occupations of a more serious 
cast. In like manner those who are young 
in the faith enjoy while life is still fresh, 
the beauties and graces of religion, and 
grow enthusiastic over them as though 
they were recently discovered. The soft¬ 
ened light streaming down from the tinted 
panes of Cathedral windows, the festive 
altar, with its festoonery of evergreens and 
flowers and its pyramids of waxen tapers, 
the long snowy lines of the procession of 
fair girls moving up the aisle with noise¬ 
less footfall to receive Holy Communion 
for the first time, the great organ pouring 
forth its anthem along the naves and fill¬ 
ing the venerable pile with a swelling tide 
of sound, the majestic prelate in his robes 
of office, the noble pulpit orator rising to 
speak, the ever-welcome Sister of Charity 
gliding meekly past on her errands of 
mercy and love—all these living pictures, 


RELIGIOUS MATURITY. 


175 


and many others of a similar kind, delight 
the heart of the new convert, and dwell in 
his memory as precious gifts of heaven to 
earth. 

But these familiar sights and sounds, 
taken singly and in their outward form, are 
not religion. So exclaims the faithful old 
servant, or the elder brother, who is famil¬ 
iar with Church services from his youth, 
and finds them, however attractive, no 
longer novel. But although he is indeed 
correct in his assertion, there can be no 
doubt that such things draw the hearts of 
men towards the Church, and thus prepare 
their heads to be taught her doctrines, and 
their whole nature to obey her laws. 

Men cannot take in at once the whole 
of Christian life. They begin by getting 
partial glimpses of truth, by acquiring a 
sort of half knowledge of facts, by obtaining 
information in bits and pieces, not placing 
them even at all times in the right connec¬ 
tion with the whole system to which they 


176 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


properly belong. They are often surprised 
at finding more, and often disappointed at 
finding less than their anticipations led 
them to expect. The ideas which they had 
hastily concluded to be of primary impor¬ 
tance, sink into a subordinate and second¬ 
ary rank, and other considerations set down 
perhaps as of little relevancy, are now 
seen to be of primary importance. This is 
natural, and to be expected from all learn¬ 
ers, no matter what may be the science they 
are seeking to master. 

But gradually the student ripens into a 
proficient, and finds himself at home with 
the subject of his study. His mind be¬ 
comes organized, and his ideas are arranged 
in their proper place. Then you find about 
him a certain repose that was not there 
before. He loves his science or art, and 
esteems it as highly as in the days of his 
youthful enthusiasm, and even more high¬ 
ly, for he now understands it better. His 
enthusiasm is deeper, although perchance 


RELIGIOUS MATURITY. 


177 


less outspoken, and less demonstrative, 
and the excitable tyro settles gracefully into 
the ripe and quiet scholar. 

These considerations will induce the 
charitably disposed to be careful in judg¬ 
ing others who love and follow what is 
good, even if they follow it rather with the 
eager steps of untried recruits than with 
the firm tread of experienced veterans. 

Meanwhile, dear reader, it would be 
well for you occasionally to remember that 
faith alone, no matter how strong, will not 
secure the eternal salvation of your soul; 
and entering into yourself, to examine 
whether your conduct is that of a Chris¬ 
tian, who has had a long course of training 
in the school of the Redeemer, or whether 
it is still such as might be expected in a 
recent convert, but is scarcely satisfactory 
in one who has had your peculiar graces 
and advantages for so long a time. 

I propose to your attentive consideration 
four tests, by applying which you shall be 
12 


178 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


enabled to judge whether your religion is 
undeveloped and green, or ripe and mellow 
like the fruit of autumn. 

1st. When you are wrong, do you hon¬ 
estly acknowledge the fact, or do you pre¬ 
tend to yourself and to others that you are 
doing right? There is always hope for 
him who calls things by their right names, 
and owns up to the truth, even though it 
condemns his own actions. He who will 
not allow others to tell him that he is 
wrong, and who will force ill-founded ex¬ 
cuses on his own conscience, is in a bad 
way, for he closes up the only two sources 
from which the truth can flow forth to him 
and reclaim him. 

2d. Do you honestly try to remember, 
and act on the principle, that the service of 
God is the end for which you were created, 
and that all created persons and things are 
only means towards this end ? 

The difference between the followers of 
our Saviour and the followers of the wick- 


RELIGIOUS MATURITY. 


179 


ed world, consists in this : the former seek 
God first of all, and the things of this world 
only in subservience to this seeking, whilst 
the latter seek the things of this world for 
their own amusement and advantage, with¬ 
out any reference at all to the will of God. 
He who does not try to seek God first, and 
the things of this world afterwards, has not 
yet learned the first principles of religion. 

3d. Do you find that in suffering and 
sorrow you are led easily to „ turn to God 
for strength, and again when successful and 
happy, does it give you pleasure to remem¬ 
ber His goodness and return thanks ? 

This is an excellent test to ascertain the 
condition of your internal life and health. 
Those who grow hard and obstinate, and 
who drop their devotional practices when 
they are in trouble and affliction, are 
weakly and poorly established in the faith, 
whilst again those who grow giddy and 
forgetful of God in every little turn of pros¬ 
perity, have good reason to fear that they 


180 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


care more about earth than heaven, more 
about creatures than the Creator. 

4th. Do you find that consolation in your 
prayers, and practices of religion hold you 
to God, and that spiritual desolation easily 
depresses and drives you from Him? If 
we have firm faith and solid piety, conso¬ 
lation or desolation do not alter us. The 
good and faithful servant attends to his 
Master’s orders alike, in fine weather and 
in foul, in sunshine and in shadow. 

Apply these tests to your present condi¬ 
tion, by answering each question fairly, 
and you will ascertain how far Religion 
has purified, strengthened, and elevated 
your character, and what hopes you may 
have of rising to the higher path of perfec¬ 
tion, towards which even the weakest 
among us are obliged to aspire. 


VALUE OF A SOUL. 


181 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

VALUE OP A SOUL. 

We look forth upon the works of nature, 
and their grandeur and beauty charm us 
into silent admiration, or inspire us with 
a hymn of wonder and praise. The least 
gifted of men cannot help being warmed 
^into enthusiasm, when he gazes over the 
bosom of the ocean, or up at the towering 
peaks of a mountain range, or even upon 
some old-world landscape, rolled far out 
like a map before him, adorned by river 
and lake, vine-land and corn-field, shady 
forest and laughing meadow, and dotted 
here and there by the works of man, battle- 
mented castle, glittering spire, or marble 
villa, half hidden among trees. But all the 
grandeur and beauty that surround us are 
as nothing compared to the majesty of a 
human soul. 


182 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


How wonderful is the power of thought! 
By its means we penetrate the earth "be¬ 
neath our feet, and read the secrets of its 
dark and silent bosom; we scrutinize the 
depths of the sea, and study the rules 
which govern it when it rages in the up¬ 
heavals of the storm, and when it lies 
down in motionless calm like a lion taking 
his rest. We range at will among the 
planets and suns above us, and learn their 
habitation and their name; we grasp the^ 
lightning’s fiery wing, and teach it to be 
the messenger of our thought across the 
boundless realms of space; we drag out 
the coal that has lain for centuries in the 
dark caverns of earth, and force it to yield 
up its hidden essence to light our dwellings 
and our thoroughfares; we harness the 
dangerous vapor-cloud, and compel it to 
carry our burdens and bear us rapidly 
along, as the trained steed carries its mas¬ 
ter whithersoever it may be his pleasure. 
More wonderful still, is the mind sitting in 


VALUE OF A SOUL. 


183 


judgment upon facts; comparing cause and 
effect, good and evil; watching the deduc¬ 
tions of science ; guiding the gradual ex¬ 
perience of art, and forming its rules; 
sifting truth from falsehood, and studying 
the perfections of Infinite Being itself. 
Memory, the obedient handmaid of the 
mind, is ever read}^ to scour whole centu¬ 
ries of time gone by, and gathering up their 
treasures of knowledge to lay them at the 
feet of the superior faculty. And Will, 
created not to be a slave, but free forever, 
stands clothed with power that no mortal 
energy can crush, and that is respected 
by God Himself, who made it to His own 
image and likeness. 

Aside from the intrinsic worth of a soul, 
let us recollect that God Himself values it 
as the most perfect thing He has created 
on this earth. Its beauty is a copy of His 
own infinite perfection. The motive He 
had for creating it was eternal love; the 
object, His own divine glory. 


184 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Man being once created, He treated him 
as a child; He introduced him to the fel¬ 
lowship of the bright spirits above, and 
deigned to converse familiarly with him. 
And when man in his folly threw away by 
disobedience all the fair and beautiful gifts 
that God had freely given him, and sullied 
the purity of his own nature by sin, still 
his Heavenly Fcither dealt out to him a 
merciful measure of punishment, and com¬ 
forted the unhappy ofiender with the prom¬ 
ise of a future Redeemer. 

The only begotten Son of God became a 
hostage for man to the justice of his Father, 
and in the fulness of time He redeemed His 
pledge by paying the ransom of the human 
race in His own sacred blood. So great 
was the love of God for man, that when no 
one else could save him, He gave His own 
Divine Son to die for his redemption. O ! 
how precious then in the sight of God must 
be the value of a human Soul! 

How great then must be our folly when 


VALUE OF A SOUL. 


185 


we neglect the interests of so glorious a 
spirit confided by divine condescension to 
our keeping; how dark our ingratitude 
and our perfidy when we deliberately soil 
its purity with the degrading stains of sin. 

Have pity, O Christian, upon thy im¬ 
mortal soul! No king in all his glory has 
greater reason to be honestly proud than 
hast thou when thy soul is pure and holy 
in the sight of God; no culprit ever dealt 
a fouler blow on his unsuspecting victim 
than thou dost infiict on thy soul when de¬ 
liberately consenting to commit a mortal 
sin. 


186 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTEE XXXIY. 

RELIGION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 

Eeligion inside the Church is a special 
virtue and a most excellent thing. It 
springs from the root of sincere faith, and it 
produces as its fruits attention, devotion, 
modesty, and recollection. It keeps us in a 
proper frame of mind to derive profit from 
our visit to the Church, and makes us feel 
lighter and happier when we sally forth 
again from its consecrated portals. 

But going to the Church and praying at 
the foot of its holy Altars is not the end of 
Eeligion—it is only one of the divinely ap¬ 
pointed means for securing its objects. 

If we wish to know whether we are pro¬ 
gressing or falling back in the service of 
Grod, we must compare our Eeligion inside 
the Church with our Eeligion outside of it. 


RELIGION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 187 


When we are in Church we exercise the 
theological virtues, we make acts of Faith, 
Hope, and Charity. We give expression 
in public prayer to our sentiments of 
devotion, and petition for relief in our 
necessities, and we also indulge in private 
prayer, although we are in the public place 
of worship. 

We enjoy an abode of peace and a season 
of rest. But we cannot judge of the quali¬ 
ties of a good soldier in peace, nor of a 
good mariner in port. The hour of battle 
is the time to show the courage of the one, 
and the open sea the place to try the en¬ 
durance of the other. In like manner, O 
Christian, thy conduct and bearing outside 
the Church will put thy religion to the 
test, and show, let us hope, that thy good 
resolutions have not been written in water. 

To prepare then for the fulfilment of 
duty in common life, cherish the practice 
of attending the public worship of the 
Church. Go to Church by all means. 


188 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Distrust the soundness of any one who 
makes light of stated attendance at the 
House of God. In His house we are in¬ 
spired with reverence and veneration, and 
the general air of devotion around us assists 
the soul in feeling a lively sense of His 
Divine Presence. We remember our ac¬ 
countability to Him, bowing down before 
Him as the author of good, the punisher of 
evil, the dispenser of life and death, the 
arbiter of fortune, and the eternal Judge 
of mankind. For the love of Him we re¬ 
solve to be true to ourselves and just and 
charitable to our fellow-man. The moral 
virtues that regulate the relations passing 
between man and man are simply conse¬ 
quences and deductions from the theologi¬ 
cal virtues that regulate the relations pass¬ 
ing between man and God. 

Let Religion inside the Church, then, be 
a preparation for Religion outside the 
Church. He who has been to Church 
must have learned, if he has learned any 


RELIGION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 189 


thing, that he has a God to serve and a 
soul to save. This work, to perform 
which he was created and placed in the 
world, cannot he done in Church. It will 
he faithfully carried on or faithlessly neg¬ 
lected in the midst of business, politics, 
amusements, and all the various cares and 
pleasures of this world. Let him who 
goes to Church remember that he is in the 
place and at the time when and where he 
can prepare his soul to meet the tempta¬ 
tions and distractions of every day, and 
get himself in readiness to do his duty, in 
spite of all inducements to the contrary, 
from whatever quarter they may come. 

When we are in Church, kneeling hum¬ 
bly before the Lord, let us foresee the diffi¬ 
culties we are most likely to encounter; 
let us entreat Divine Mercy to grant us the 
graces we require, to prevail in the hour 
of conflict with the enemies of our souls, 
and let us fortify ourselves by strong and 
earnest resolutions to be faithful to our 


190 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


God, in defiance of any temporal disadvan¬ 
tages that may be thrown across our path. 

If we attend the Holy Sacrifice and share 
in the solemn and public offices of Religion 
with such dispositions as these, then in¬ 
deed shall our vocal exercises of devotion 
not be vain, for they will send us forth 
into the outside world forewarned and 
forearmed, fully aware of what dangers we 
shall have to encounter, and fully informed 
as to the means for avoiding evil and doing 
good. 


TRUE PIETY. 


191 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

TRUE PIETY. 

Blessings on the truly pious ! for they 
are a blessing to the community in which 
they live. Men busy with the world may 
lose all taste for the dogmas and the duties 
which Religion teaches, but they never 
deny the tribute of admiration and respect 
to the man or the woman of sincere and 
unaffected piety. 

The most beautiful and fresh of natural 
flowers may be imitated in paper, feathers, 
or wax, and so may piety be counterfeited 
to suit the paltry and selfish ends of the 
hypocrite and the pretender. But the arts 
of the spiritual forger only show how pre¬ 
cious the genuine virtue must be in the 
eyes of all men. 

If we look at Piety as a principle, it is 
veneration which fills the mind for God, and 


192 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


love which fills the heart for His beautiful 
attributes and most amiable perfections. 

If we look at it in practice, it is the ap¬ 
plying and the exercising of our thoughts 
and our affections in obedience to His will, 
with earnest and tender interest in His ser¬ 
vice. 

Now in yielding our heart and conse¬ 
crating our energy with solemn attention 
to the service of the Supreme Being, we 
set a crown upon every virtue we possess, 
we direct the whole machinery of our being 
and the whole vigor of our life towards 
God as its object, just as the helm guides 
every part of a ship in motion towards the 
one great object, the haven of safety and 
peace. 

This faint adumbration of True Piety will 
show that it is healthy, unaffected, loving, 
and cheerful; its inner life basking in the 
smile of that good God whose presence is 
never lost sight of by the pious soul, and 
its outward action shedding roundabout 


TRUE PIETY. 


193 


affection, patience, and pity, upon all man¬ 
kind. 

The effect of inward piety upon outer 
life extends from the actions even to the 
personal appearance. Accordingly, we 
find that the poet and the painter never 
tire of endeavoring to copy the pure and 
elevated expression of the holy Nun at 
prayer ; the artless peasant girl before a 
wayside chapel; the matron schooled by 
long and patient suffering; the venerable 
monk at his studies; Magdalen the con¬ 
templative, in the wilderness, or Stephen 
the inspired, among the crowd of his per¬ 
secutors. 

The features are not always an infallible 
index of the life within. Still we can fol¬ 
low safely the instinct that leads us to 
avoid, as deceptive, the assumption of 
piety which is accompanied by looks that 
shadow forth the workings of a stern and 
bitter spirit, obstinate and arrogant for self, 
intolerant and uncharitable towards others. 

13 


194 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


There can be no pnrer or nobler motive 
in adopting or performing any action than 
reverence and love for God, and the desire 
to do what will please Him. Now this mo¬ 
tive is the very essence of piety. With it 
we are pious, without it we are hypocrites. 
Guided by it we love God and man, and 
serve both; without it we are the merest 
worshippers of self. The imitation of the 
outward semblance of piety is often in bad 
taste and out of place ; the influence of true 
Piety is always in order, never offensive, 
is useful in all things, and fitted to forward 
and perfect every honest undertaking in 
which we may be engaged. 

There are certain marks by which genu¬ 
ine Piety may be known, and the absence 
of which may justify us in suspecting that 
we have before us only the vice of hypoc¬ 
risy simulating the virtue of piety, or an 
affectation of the reality,—a mere shadow 
in place of the solid substance. 

True Pfbty is, in the first place, intelli- 


TRUE PIETY. 


195 


gent. It must make place for all that con¬ 
cerns the service of God, whether in great 
things or little. It must not prefer the 
counsels to the commandments, for that 
piety is a mockery, which leads one to 
busy himself in purely devotional acts 
and observances, neglecting meanwhile 
what the law of God makes a matter of 
bounden duty. The commandments of 
God are of strict obligation, and obedience 
to His will cannot be preceded, but may 
indeed be followed, by a holy desire to 
walk in the path of Christian perfection. 

In the second place, our piety must be 
simple . It must seek first the Kingdom of 
God and His justice. If it is mixed with 
motives of ambition, self-seeking, or world¬ 
ly profit, it is of very doubtful character. 
If, still further, it should be put on for no 
other reason than to please the world and 
advance our personal interests, it is sheer 
hypocrisy. 

Finally, it must be heart-felt. It must 


196 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


spring from the interior life, and show it¬ 
self outwardly from the fulness of the 
heart. If it seats itself upon the features, 
and breathes from the lips without being 
fed by fountains of devotion that lie below 
the surface, even in the depths of a faithful 
and loving spirit, it is merely the religion 
of the Pharisees of old, sufficient only to 
deceive men but not to please God. 

False piety is the slave of outward forms, 
useless, because not animated by spirit and 
truth; real piety is natural, fervent, and 
free, its light is the beauty of religion, and 
its practice is the happiness of the just man 
upon earth. 


SELF-COMMAND. 


197 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

SELF-COMMAND. 

Without the power of self-command no 
one can be naturally great or supernatural- 
ly good. This power does not consist in 
any one faculty or virtue, but it is the full 
possession of our soul, and the harmonious 
use of our energies at the right time and in 
the right place. Reason calmly points out 
the proper course of action to be pursued, 
and the will resolutely follows her direc¬ 
tions until the action is completed. 

Self-command implies a double office in 
the ruling powers of the soul. A man may 
be drawn back from the fulfilment of duty 
by a sluggish temperament, a lazy disposi¬ 
tion, an unwillingness to assume responsi¬ 
bility, by timidity and excessive modesty, 
or love of his own ease and comfort. In 


198 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


cases of this kind he must command his 
energies, rouse himself to action, shake off 
his lethargy, and force himself into the 
performance of his duty in spite of his in¬ 
clination to keep quiet and rest. Or, again, 
a man may be driven forward by a fiery 
temper, that urges him to rush into action 
without forethought or preparation, with¬ 
out using the right and proper means to in¬ 
sure success, without reckoning upon the 
consequences which may follow from rash 
behavior and want of precaution. Under 
these circumstances one must hold his 
energies in check, control his ardor, and in 
spite of all impatient suggestions to the 
contrary, take his time and act with sober 
prudence and due deliberation. A good 
steed is not always to be driven according 
to his animal propensities, but he must be 
taught, by the use sometimes of the rein 
and sometimes of the spur, to obey the 
wishes of his rider. 

We cannot divide the human character 


SELF-COMMAND. 


199 


into good and bad, as God in the begin¬ 
ning divided light from darkness. Our 
motives are often mixed up so inextricably 
that we are even ourselves unable to 
classify them. The propensities and in¬ 
clinations of the soul are not evil in them¬ 
selves ; even the appetites of our lower 
nature have a proper and legitimate use. 
The honest zeal with which a preacher 
inveighs against the rampant vices of his 
time is a human feeling—a passion if you 
choose to call it so—of the same kind as 
the anger with which an unfeeling father 
berates, without just cause, a child or a 
servant. 

But these energies must be subject to 
reason. They are very good servants but 
very bad masters. The lion and the tiger 
in Eden were subject to man, and came at 
his call with obsequious obedience; but 
when he lost the privileges of his sinless 
state, their presence filled him with terror 
and alarm, and he either tied from them in 


200 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


abject fear, or was, perhaps, torn to pieces 
by the savage strength, no longer con¬ 
trolled by the sound of his voice or the 
glance of his eye. 

Dangerous as our passions may be we 
cannot destroy or extinguish them, any 
more than we can live in this life by our 
spiritual nature alone, and throw aside the 
lower or animal nature. 

Religion teaches us to hold our appetites 
and inclinations subject to the law of our 
mind, but she does not place before us the 
impossible task of unmaking our nature, 
or turning ourselves into different beings 
from what God has been pleased to make 
us with His own hands. 

The power of self-control may be ac¬ 
quired to a certain extent, by natural 
strength alone, independent of religious and 
supernatural influences. We see proofs of 
this every day, for the hardy sailor ready 
to spring at any moment from his ham¬ 
mock to his never-ending battle with wind 


SELF-COMMAND. 


201 


and wave, the soldier rushing promptly 
to face the bayonet or the cannon at the 
word of command, the pugilist and the 
gymnast leading, for a season at least, the 
life of an anchoret of the desert: all these 
are types of character with which most of 
us are familiar. The Indian warrior is not 
only trained to habits of temperance, hardi¬ 
hood, and endurance, but he would lower 
himself in the eyes of his fellow-braves 
were he to hint that he is suffering from 
hunger or from thirst, to betray feelings of 
surprise or curiosity, or to wince under the 
tortures inflicted upon his person, by the 
cruel ingenuity of his enemies. These 
remarkable instances of self-control speak 
powerfully in favor of the truth, that natu¬ 
ral dispositions are not absolutely bad in 
themselves, and go far to establish the fact, 
that the godlike image and likeness accord¬ 
ing to which humanity was made, may be 
overlaid indeed with sin and shame, but 
can never be totally effaced. 


202 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


The virtue required of the Christian is 
the same in its effects as that which is 
reached by mere human heroism. But the 
motives of Christian self-command are of a 
higher order. We school nature and train 
her powers to subjection that we may 
please God, and be ready at any moment 
to do His bidding. We are supported not 
only by firm resolves and self reliance, but 
much more by the grace of God, which in 
other days led tender virgins to face the 
wild beasts in the amphitheatre, and inno¬ 
cent children to bow meekly beneath the 
sword of persecution, and die for the faith 
of their fathers. 



ENEMIES. 


203 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

ENEMIES. 

Thebe are two spirits especially opposed 
to the spirit of our Blessed Redeemer : one 
is pride that puts loye of self in the place 
of the loye of God, the other that hardness 
and coldness that sacrifices to self all care 
and consideration for our neighbor. As 
our enemy is our neighbor, presented to us 
in the least acceptable or rather the most 
objectionable form, the question, if we loye 
him or not, is an excellent test by which to 
determine whether we haye or not the true 
spirit of our Lord. 

The world has cried aloud against the 
command to loye our enemy, censuring it 
as impossible or most difficult at least of 
fulfilment. Yet those who go to work in 
the right way, find it far less difficult to 


204 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


fulfil tlian might at first be expected. 
There is a great and glorious motive for 
resolute action in this matter, and it is that 
he who forgives his enemy, frees himself 
by one effort from an odious slavery, and is 
made happy by the performance of a truly 
magnanimous action. Leaving aside reli¬ 
gious considerations, forgiveness is truer to 
dignified and refined human nature, than 
the haughty but ignoble rancor of revenge, 
contempt, and retaliation. 

The man who hates another, may dwell 
as much as he pleases on his prudence and 
self-respect, but he cannot help feeling that 
he is in a false position, and in the power 
of another. He is disturbed, annoyed, 
fretted by the memory of his enemy, by 
every thought that refers to him, by the 
mere mention of his name. The feeling of 
contempt is a bondage, for it is a very 
unpleasant sensation, that one would gladly 
be rid of. The only way to be free of all 
the unpleasant influences of a personal 


ENEMIES. 


205 


enemy, is to get clear of him as an enemy, 
and the shortest way to do this is to forgive 
and forget him as such. If a man were not 
induced to take this course by Christian 
motives, it would still be really the best 
plan that he could be taught by common 
sense, and the considerations of personal 
peace and comfort. 

We must not mistake what is command¬ 
ed for what is not. We are not commanded 
to take to our bosom as a friend, the mean, 
perhaps treacherous creature who has out¬ 
raged and insulted us. We are not called 
upon to approve or indorse, or even to 
pass by unnoticed the wickedness, ingrati¬ 
tude, and inj ustice of his behavior. We are 
not expected to extend to him the personal 
affection, the tender regard, which we pour 
forth upon relatives, companions, or con¬ 
genial spirits. 

Our obligation is simply to place the 
offender, in spite of his demerits, and in 
spite of our just reasons for indignation at 


206 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


his evil behavior, on the footing of onr 
fellow-creatures at large, to whom we wish 
well for the sake of God. We are not com¬ 
manded to do this to oblige or gratify our 
enemy, but only to show love and obedi¬ 
ence to the Maker of both of us. We may 
forgive our enemy, and yet have good rea¬ 
son to know that he is an unprincipled and 
. untrustworthy miscreant. 

We may, at the instance of official or 
other duty, take steps to have his crimes 
legally punished, and yet have no personal 
rancor against him. It may be even that 
our feelings of aversion and dislike rise, in 
spite of ourselves, with a sensation of loath¬ 
ing, at the very appearance of the obnox¬ 
ious individual, and yet, in spite of this 
irrepressible physical feeling, we may still 
be able to say in the cold determination of 
our will, that we wish him no harm, but 
that we leave him to God to be dealt with 
as He pleases ; that if we could injure him 
we would not do so, in spite of all the un- 


ENEMIES. 


207 


pleasant sensations caused by the mere 
sight of him. 

The Saints, in their day, haye embraced 
and kissed their most cruel foes. Such 
conduct is heroic, and to be forever ad¬ 
mired ; but the law that commands us to 
forgive our enemies, does not make it mat¬ 
ter of obligation for all to go so far. In 
short, you are bound to resolve that your 
enemy shall receive at your hands the con¬ 
sideration that all God’s creatures are enti¬ 
tled to, but you are not bound to put him 
again on the footing of your friend. 

You are bound to act fairly and justly 
to all men ; to do nothing to them that un¬ 
der like circumstances you would not have 
done to yourself; and, in addition to this, 
you are bound to deal fairly by your ene¬ 
my, and not to treat him with meanness, 
injustice, or cruelty, because he happens 
to be your enemy. Likes and dislikes are 
movements of feeling that we cannot al¬ 
ways control; but, remembering how much 


208 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


we stand in need of forgiveness ourselves, 
we must endeavor to withhold from no fel- 
low-heing the common charities that we 
owe to each other, simply as man to man. 


TEMPER. 


209 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

TEMPER. 

The very word at the head of this chap¬ 
ter reminds us of an unceasing conflict, in 
which calm reflection on the one hand 
labors to preserve harmony among the pas¬ 
sions and affections, while on the other 
hand the heated brain strives to excite 
and confuse them. We are very apt to 
excuse acts of irritability and peevishness, 
by placing them to the account of a hasty 
temper or a fretful disposition, and we even 
state that we cannot help ourselves, and 
that it is not our fault. An excuse of this 
kind, however, rarely satisfies our con¬ 
science. We feel ashamed of ourselves, and 
whatever may be the exciting cause or 
immediate occasion of our sin, we are con¬ 
scious that we are not free from blame. 

14 


210 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Some persons are certainly born with 
weak and irritable nerves, and many more 
are sick and suffering for want of proper 
physical training. The hasty passion of 
these unfortunates, is more of a disease than 
a moral delinquency, and they stand in need 
rather of a physician than of a spiritual 
director, to effect a permanent cure. Others, 
again, have been allowed to grow up 
through the period of childhood and ado¬ 
lescence, without moral training or advice, 
while they were at the same time subjected 
to numberless arbitrary vexations and in¬ 
flictions of which they never could see or 
understand the reason, simply because 
there was no good reason to see or under¬ 
stand. With others, hastiness of temper 
has its root in unsubdued pride, impatience 
of contradiction, or inordinate suscepti¬ 
bility. 

We should all be firmly persuaded of the 
truth, that there is no more certain source 
of misery to ourselves and those around us 


TEMPER. 


211 


than an undisciplined temper. The soul of 
the irritable man is a soil in which every 
weed of vice takes root and flourishes. He 
is at all times ready to become a victim of 
moral ailments from confusion and dark¬ 
ness of thought, down to cravings of coarse 
appetite. 

Equanimity of mind, on the contrary, 
that is, a sweet and uniform temper, pre¬ 
pares one for fulfilling with ease every 
duty, and acquiring the practice of every 
choice and beautiful virtue. 

Now a person may be born stupid and 
sluggish enough to be insensible almost to 
what another of more delicate organization 
will feel keenly, yet it is nevertheless cer¬ 
tain that a calm and easy temper may be 
acquired by practice and perseverance. 
He who is born with an amiable and gentle 
disposition may render it still more beauti¬ 
ful and attractive by the grace of God and 
the careful following of Christian meek¬ 
ness ; in like manner, one who has inherited 


212 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


more harshness than sweetness may polish 
and correct nature by haying recourse to 
the same means. Very often we find a 
person born with a melodious and flexible 
voice which art has cultivated to a still 
higher degree of perfection, and another 
again, who, under the same patient train¬ 
ing, has corrected innumerable defects in 
a voice originally rough and uncouth, but 
now true, harmonious, and sweetly pleas¬ 
ant to the listener’s ear. 

A temper which is easily ruffled renders 
one a victim of every outward circum¬ 
stance of a disagreeable kind. His senses 
become the constant channels of unpleas¬ 
ant impressions. A grating sound or a 
sudden noise excites the unhappy sufferer, 
and contradiction drives him to furious 
anger. His spirit vibrates from elation 
to depression and back again, thus render¬ 
ing him happy or unhappy without cause, 
and exposing him constantly to the effects 
of sudden and violent reaction. 



TEMPER. 


213 


He is subject to varying moods of feeling 
and sentiment, to vaporish forebodings of 
evil, and exaggerated expectations of good: 
both, perhaps, unprofitable as well as un¬ 
founded. 

He is liable to fits of despondency and 
weariness, causing the wine of life to grow 
stale and flat, and making him wish for his 
own death. Or again, he is roused to fits 
of spleen which .he vents on innocent per¬ 
sons, visiting upon them the perversity 
which is purely his own. 

His visitors and friends never know how 
they are to find him, or how to take him 
when they come into his presence. He is 
ready, unless humored like a sick child or 
a mild lunatic, to indulge in unpleasant 
and injurious outbreaks of scorn and con¬ 
tempt. He is flippant and untruthful in 
his talk. He forms rash and unjust judg¬ 
ments, hasty likes and dislikes, and is 
neglectful, inconstant, and ungrateful. Al¬ 
ways ready to tax the patience of others, 


214 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


and never willing to pnt up witli any 
demands upon his own forbearance, he 
easily loses his old friends and seldom 
makes any new ones. 

All these circumstances in the outward 
life of a Christian man go to show that his 
inward life is weak and sickly, and that he 
has made no progress in the practice of vir¬ 
tue. The kindness and affability which 
depend upon mere caprice are poor helps to 
the soul. Look to your conduct, and ac¬ 
quire more solid virtue, or you will become 
a nuisance to yourself, and a thorn in the 
side of every one who has the misfortune 
to be under your charge. He who does 
not know how to govern himself, is alto¬ 
gether unfit to govern a family or a com¬ 
munity of any kind. The picture presented 
in this chapter is not a pleasant one, but it 
shows faithfully the appearance we present 
to others, if not to ourselves, when we 
allow our temper to run riot, unchecked by 
Reason and Religion. 


THE RULING PASSION. 


215 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE RULING PASSION. 

The knowledge of a man’s ruling pas¬ 
sion gives us a key to his character, for it 
explains why he has acted after a given 
fashion in the past, and it enables us to 
form a tolerably accurate forecast of his 
probable action under given circumstances 
in the future. And yet, in studying my 
own character or that of another, I would 
not confine my investigations to the ruling 
passion only. We find that human nature 
inclines us to certain weaknesses when we 
consider it on its dark side, but then when 
we look on its bright side we find that it has 
more facility, or, if you please, less diffi¬ 
culty, in being led towards certain good 
actions than towards others. Hot only the 
Passions have a ruler and a chief among 


216 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


them, but every other group of faculties is 
organized in the same way. We may then 
talk correctly not only of a man’s ruling 
passion, but also of his ruling virtue, his 
ruling talent, his ruling taste, his ruling 
ability, his ruling kindness, his strong point 
of whatever sort, and in whatever depart¬ 
ment. 

To understand dispositions more thor¬ 
oughly in this connection, we can compare 
persons in their fancies and preferences. 
We find that one has a fondness for flow¬ 
ers and does not enjoy harmony of sounds, 
and another is devoted to music but is not 
attracted by sweet odors or varied colors. 

Youth and rude health delight in games 
of strength and agility, while a maturer 
and graver mind will seek relaxation or 
excitement in games of calculation or 
chance. One person finds a high degree 
of enjoyment in the beauties of nature or 
of art, while another will walk along for 
minutes or hours without looking at a tree 


THE RULING PASSION. 


217 


or being aware that the walls of* the rooms 
he is traversing are hang with paintings of 
merit. 

Men act in a similar manner as moral 
agents. One is always ready to see a 
world of goodness and beauty, in helping 
the young, the poor, and the simple, while 
another cannot get over the idea that they 
are much better off when let alone, and not 
helped at all. The reserved and taciturn 
man may be a man of strict justice; the 
generous man will rob his own family and 
himself to gratify his prodigal and wasteful 
disposition, under the plea of charity. 

Religion teaches us that all these tenden¬ 
cies and leanings can, by the grace of God, 
be governed and directed ; and I speak of 
them precisely that my reader may take 
the view which Religion teaches. Let him 
calmly survey his natural dispositions and 
faculties, whether for good or evil. Let 
him bring all his energy and all the weight 
and influence of his Religion to put down 


218 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


the chief rebel in the kingdom of his soul, 
and force it to keep within the bounds set 
by reason and morality. Let him watch¬ 
fully and constantly cherish and bring out 
the virtues for the practice of which he is 
best fitted, strengthen them by earnestness 
and diligence, and he will come at last to 
perform easily and sweetly what in the 
beginning required a great effort. He who 
in the hour of meditation and prayer prom¬ 
ises in a general way to be good, and to 
avoid sin, goes abroad with a vague and 
general impression which is quickly effaced 
from the mind by the chafing cares and 
concerns of life; but he who sets as his 
task for a particular day the practice of a 
particular virtue, or the controlling of a 
particular vicious inclination, has his atten¬ 
tion concentrated, his recollection on the 
alert, his will forewarned, and is likely to 
carry out the good resolution with which 
he began the day. It will be his care not 
merely to avoid faults in general, but to 


THE RULING PASSION. 


219 


strike at the root of sin, by laboring to 
avoid the fault which he commits most fre¬ 
quently, and which is the cause of nearly 
all his other faults. He will endeavor 
honestly to practice the virtue that is 
opposed more directly to his besetting sin, 
and to imitate the example of those who 
are most distinguished for their uniform 
good behavior and cheerful piety. 


220 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE SIN OF OMISSION. 

There are many well-meaning persons 
who examine their consciences, and can 
say with truth that they are not guilty, as 
far as they can see, of any flagrant trans¬ 
gression against the law of God, nor yet 
of intentionally unkind behavior towards 
their neighbor. This class of persons often 
avoid sin because it is gross and uncom¬ 
fortable, and, not being actuated by*strong 
passions, if they do commit any faults'they 
are dainty and fashionable ones. In other 
words, although like the Pharisee of old, 
they do really avoid the unclean offences 
of publicans and notorious sinners, they 
are damned through their arrogance and 
spiritual pride. 

But there is another sort of transgression 


THE SIN OF OMISSION. 221 

of which they rarely think, and which may 
pnt to shame the spiritual-minded and even 
those who suppose that they are walking 
the higher roads to perfection: it is the sin 
of Omission. 

Let us look over the long vista that 
stretches forward from the time when we 
first knew our God, when we first gazed 
upon the beauty always ancient and always 
new, and when we first understood that it 
was folly to expect to be happy unless by 
serving Him. How great were our unfaith¬ 
fulness, weakness, and indecision! We 
tried, it is true, to live up to a certain point 
according to the law of God, but how 
wavering and inconstant was the service 
we paid Him ! The faculties of mind and 
of heart, which He gave us to do His work, 
remained neglected and unimproved. We 
were mingled with others whom we loved 
and admired for their patience in suffering, 
their sweetness of temper, their large and 
generous spirit of charity, their freedom 


222 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


from the petty weaknesses of sex, and from 
the influence of unfavorable social and 
domestic surroundings ; hut what did we 
do to emulate them, imitate their virtues, 
advance ourselves, and be of use to others ? 
We may know that we were superior 
to these gentle neighbors in advantages 
of education, in native force of character, 
perhaps in the means or appliances for 
doing good. Why then do we feel so far 
inferior to them in goodness ? Why do 
we say that they must be happy, being so 
good ? thus virtually confessing that we are 
neither good nor happy. Why should we 
not do what they do, so as to occupy their 
position and share their happiness? We 
have neglected to cultivate our faculties, 
to school and bring out our inclinations, 
propensities, and wishes to do good. 
Omission! Omission ! 

We cannot be as good as our neighbors, 
we say, for we began under unfavorable 
auspices, and we have not been cultivated as 


TIIE SIN OF OMISSION. 


223 


they have in doing good. But the truthful 
Past will remind us of many opportunities 
when we might have done what was good 
and what was kind, and we have not done 
it. Even when our facilities for leading 
lives of large and warm charity had been 
neglected, we still had opportunities, acts 
of benevolence that came to us to be done; 
poor or unhappy people that were our 
own, and had no one to recur to but us— 
why did we neglect them? We never 
thought, we never felt, we never inquired. 
Omission! Omission! 

Why deceive ourselves, and attempt to 
enlist our conscience in a conspiracy against 
truth ? Have we not often known and felt 
that God wished us to take a certain course ? 
We have so known His will, we have so 
felt our obligation. Why then have we 
not followed the truth so clearly shown ? 
A star arose in the East, and shed its silver 
rays upon the path open before you. Chris¬ 
tian soul, dear to God, favored by so many 


224 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


graces, wliy did you not follow the star 
which beckoned you to the feet of the 
newly revealed King in Bethlehem ? You 
did not! Omission ! Omission ! 

But there is more to be said for your bit¬ 
ter but wholesome humiliation. Why have 
you loitered, when it was your duty to go 
boldly forward in the performance of duty \ 
You are not to be tried and judged yet by 
Almighty God—not tinally for time and 
eternity; but on your own fairness and 
dignity, answer your own conscience. It 
was your full conviction that some duty 
should have been performed, or some im¬ 
pediment to good broken through and over¬ 
come. Inactive servant, you have failed 
in your duty; you have proved heedless 
of your salvation, untrue to yourself, and 
untrue to God. Why fail to carry out 
what was so clearly your conviction of 
right \ Omission! Omission ! 

There are certain conditions in life in 
which we are more liable than in others to 


THE SIN OF OMISSION. 


225 


leave our duty undone. Parents have du¬ 
ties to perform in regard to tlieir children 
which cannot be neglected, without placing 
the salvation of both in great danger. 
Employers must keep a wise and prudent 
outlook over the young and inexperienced 
souls confided to their care. In examining 
the record of the past, we must inquire 
also into our conduct in this regard, for we 
shall have to answer for the sins of others 
as well as our own, if committed through 
our fault. 

Life is a serious and earnest task. To 
loiter away our time in idleness, is to leave 
the interests of eternity unprovided for; 
and to fritter away in vanity the energies 
that God has given us, is to add the sin of 
ingratitude to that of disobedience. 

15 


226 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

LIMITS OF THOUGHT. 

In tlie eighteenth century the world rose 
resolutely against any and every law limit- , 
ing thought, and man asserted his right to 
know every thing. 

It is to the credit of our Age, that having 
looked far beyond our masters in many 
things, and particularly in the natural sci¬ 
ences, we have obtained a glimpse of the 
interminable fields of knowledge, which 
still remain to be explored. Our men of 
learning have grown more modest in extol¬ 
ling the claims and rights of reason. 

The plain truth must stand, that reason 
is finite, and knowledge infinite. That 
which is to know, is of small capacity, and 
which is to be known, is bottomless and 
boundless. The limitation is on the part 


LIMITS OF THOUGHT. 


227 


of reason, not on the part of the object of 
its study. When an archer shoots an ar¬ 
row into open space, it travels upward for 
a time, and falls when its force is spent. 
There is still ample space to he traversed, 
hut the momentum of the arrow is spent, 
and it can go no farther. In like manner, 
there are limits to our thought, which stops 
when it has done its utmost, because man 
is powerless to go on, not because knowl¬ 
edge forbids his advance. 

Religion is in one sense a science, for it 
is the study of the Divine nature and attri¬ 
butes, and what is true of other sciences is 
true also of this. There is no mathema¬ 
tician who has exhausted the science of 
mathematics so as to preclude all further 
discovery on the part of others ; there is no 
astronomer who has known all the astron¬ 
omy that ever will or can be known ; there 
is no philosopher who has spoken the last 
word of information that philosophy can 
furnish to human intelligence; and in 


228 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


religious learning it is not impossible that 
a man may yet arise who will see beyond 
the ken of Thomas Aquinas or Augustine. 
But the most gifted of all intellects, even 
when admitted to the company of angels 
and receiving the full noonday light of 
heaven itself, will still have before them 
an infinite ocean of knowledge which the}' 
can never plumb to its uttermost depth, 
nor traverse to its farthest reach. 

For these reasons, any one pretending to 
know every thing deserves to be laughed 
at as presumptuous and ignorant. And 
yet men are tempted to think that it would 
be but fair if a full explanation were given 
them of every fact they are called upon 
to believe. They would reduce faith to 
figures; they demand the cause and effect 
and their relations; the why and the where¬ 
fore of every thing. Modern systems of 
Religion discard mysteries and miracles, 
and virtually justify a man in refusing to 
believe every thing that he does not under- 


LIMITS OF THOUGHT. 


229 


stand. He reads in liis Bible little else 
besides a succession of mysteries and mir¬ 
acles which, in virtue of his profession, 
he must accept as true facts, though he does 
not understand them ; and yet, practically, 
his faith refuses to advance unless Reason 
has gone before and stamped the testi¬ 
mony of God with the approval of human 
wisdom. 

In spite of the tendency of our nature to 
rebel against submission to authority, let 
us calmly acknowledge our true position. 
It is simply this: We can possess no 
knowledge without mysteries, and we can 
have no organized rule without miracles. 

The mystery is that which lies beyond 
the verge of all that we are able to learn 
and understand with our limited capacity. 
It is that portion of knowledge which is 
not embraced by our understandings. We 
find mysteries in the lowest and plainest 
systems of Nature around us. We cannot 
take up a handful of earth without having 


230 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


before us more than our knowledge can 
fully explain. If we raise our eyes to the 
heavens above us, we see just enough of 
the glory of God’s creation to teach us that 
there are countless leagues of space which 
we have not seen, and countless stars and 
suns rolling in it, of which we only know 
that they exist. And if man returns to 
himself, and lays his hand upon his own 
breast or lifts it to his brow, he is in the 
presence of mysteries still more wonderful 
•—those of his own nature. 

The union of a pure spirit with a mate¬ 
rial body is a mysterious fact, the existence 
of which is proved by every thought and 
action of his life, and is yet only partially 
explained by his wisest and profoundest 
studies. 

The world is governed by a series of 
laws framed for the purpose by the will of 
God. But there is no rule without an 
exception, where that which is ruled is 
created. In a created kingdom there will 


LIMITS OF THOUGHT. 


231 


always be an ordinary and usual routine 
of existence, and extraordinary and un¬ 
usual contingencies. The same Providence 
rules under all circumstances, but we are 
only accustomed to its general routine ; we 
style its exceptional dispensations incred¬ 
ible, and deny them, because we cannot 
understand and explain them. 

And yet in the history of our own lives 
there have been moments of extraordinary 
energy, when either mind or heart rose far 
above their ordinary strength, and achieved 
triumphs never to be forgotten. In the 
history of the bodily health of men, there 
are moments when life is preserved or 
death kept off, by causes that no common 
rule can account for. There are extraordi¬ 
nary impressions, Hashes of knowledge, 
presentiments of good or evil, impulses of 
aversion or attraction, and phenomena of 
insight, emotion, and sympathetic suffer¬ 
ing, that no experience can explain or de¬ 
fine. There are developments in nature 


232 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


around us, sometimes sublimely beautiful, 
sometimes monstrous and appalling; and 
there are exhibitions of firm tenacity and 
explosive strength, that go by no ordinary 
law, and are subject to no ordinary cal¬ 
culation. 

These arguments of analogy and induc¬ 
tion are not meant to oppose the old maxim, 
that “God, who made the laws of nature, 
can suspend them or dispense from their 
operation.” On the contrary, they only 
strengthen and confirm what has been truly 
said by the wisdom of antiquity. They go 
to show man that even inside of the circle 
of God’s providence in the natural order, 
there are countless things that he must 
admit as facts, although his reason cannot 
explain them. He is thus warned against 
seeking to fathom infinite truth with his 
limited understanding, or to set bounds 
with his feeble will to the power of the 
Almighty. 


LIMITS OF ACTION. 


233 


CHAPTER XLII. 

LIMITS OF ACTION. 

The question of what limits of his action 
a true and free man may submit to, fur¬ 
nishes a beautiful and interesting subject 
for our consideration. % God has certainly 
the right to prescribe a boundary which 
human activity shall overleap at its peril. 
Man has been created a free moral agent, 
he is told not to eat of the fruit of the for¬ 
bidden tree; he may eat thereof if he so 
chooses, but he must take the conse¬ 
quences, and the consequences are sorrow 
and death. 

Religion requires nothing impossible or 
unnatural of the will of man, in placing 
limits which he must work up to, or which 
he must not pass. He cannot be true to 
religion if false to his own nature, nor true 


234 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


to his own nature if false to religion. His 
powers are so constituted and balanced in 
reference to each other, that there is only 
one true way for him to act when he is 
called upon to adopt or reject any given 
course of action. His understanding must 
examine the objects which come up for 
adoption or rejection. It examines also 
the motives why one of these objects shall 
be preferred to others, and the results 
that are likely to follow from adopting or 
forbearing to adopt it. The judgment 
pronounces what is the proper course to 
pursue, and then the will decides the case, 
and chooses the wisest and best of the dif¬ 
ferent courses proposed. The mind thus 
passes through three stages of activity— 
first, deliberation; second, judgment; third, 
choice. 

The moral law comes in simply to con¬ 
firm by its sentence the propriety of this 
course. It is sinned against by whomso¬ 
ever will allow no deliberation on the part 


LIMITS OF ACTION. 


235 


of reason of the objects proposed for his 
choice, and of their relative value, or no 
fair and impartial decision on the part of 
his judgment, or who, finally, will not 
listen to a reasonable and sensible judg¬ 
ment, but follows the blind dictates of pas¬ 
sion, and seeing the right still pursues the 
wrong. 

But the will of man haughtily asserts its 
freedom, and tramples under foot all wise 
suggestions, so that will stands for reason. 
He who positively refuses to hearken to 
reason lowers himself to the level of the 
beast of the field. He denies allegiance to 
truth, and madly embraces error in its stead. 
Conscience is the religious good sense of 
the soul, and reason is nothing but Con¬ 
science outside of moral subjects. The 
votary of Passion is disobedient to the law 
of nature as well as to that of revelation. 
He disgraces the noble gift of freedom, 
which makes him like unto God, and uses 
his power to overstep all proper limits of 


236 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


action, only to his own shame and debase¬ 
ment. 

This pernicious course is frequently the 
result not of malice aforethought, but of 
indecision of character, unsteadiness, want 
of serious consideration, and the habit of 
yielding to the last adviser that will be 
■willing to save us the trouble of thinking, 
and take the responsibility of what we do 
by approving of it beforehand. 

Religion comes to the aid of man under 
these circumstances, to help his will and 
rescue it from the consequences of its weak¬ 
ness and want of resolution. It unveils 
to the temporizing and the yielding soul 
the face of a justly angry and offended 
Lord who condemns its want of firmness. 
It revives the moral maxims of our better 
days, and terrifies the listless and the 
wavering with the stinging reproofs of a 
betrayed Conscience. It points out the 
rewards held in reserve for those who un¬ 
flinchingly do their duty, and the punish- 


LIMITS OF ACTION. 


237 


ments doomed against those who prefer 
their ease and comfort to the performance 
of well-known duty. The infirm of pur¬ 
pose require a schooling which they have 
not received in their earlier da}^s—namely, 
the schooling of the Will. Let them learn 
to act on sound principles and to trans¬ 
fer some of the vigor of these principles 
into their poor drooping wills. Let them 
be convinced that every attempt to throw 
off the burden of law, whether it be the 
natural or revealed law, is sure to punish 
the offender, and cause him to regret his 
inconsiderate action. He must then dis¬ 
cipline his natural appetites, or he will 
surely come to grief. If he is religious or 
reasonable in the sense explained in this 
chapter, his efforts will end in the same 
results; for reason is religion as far as it 
goes, and religion never goes so far as to 
contradict reason. 


238 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

BOOKS. 

A good book is a good friend. Its gen¬ 
tle voice never forces itself on our unwil¬ 
ling ear; it never rises to passionate tones 
of reproach ; it reproves our faults without 
calling up the painful shame or the swell¬ 
ing resentment that rises so often to resist 
the living accuser ; it does not desert us in 
the hour of our need, but is ready to hold 
intercourse alike with the innocent, the 
poor, and the fallen. 

A good book cannot offer us the balm of 
warm sympathy that flows from living 
soul to living soul, but its calm thought 
and its mute language can soothe and com¬ 
fort us in affliction, steal our attention gen¬ 
tly away from irritating and saddening 
topics, soften our anger, lay our passions 


BOOKS. 


239 


to rest, and impart to ns the most precious 
gift, next to God’s blessing, namely, peace 
of mind. 

Yes ! a good book is a good friend. In¬ 
attention and neglect do not deprive us of 
the information or advice it may have to 
give; and when we return to hold com¬ 
mune with it, after ingratitude and forget¬ 
fulness, we are received as kindly as he 
who at the last interchange bedewed its 
pages with tears, and followed its counsels 
with implicit reliance. 

History presents us with many instances 
of great men who read or heard, perhaps 
casually, from a book, a thought or maxim 
that became the ruling principle of their 
whole lives. They had often, perhaps, 
heard similar advice uttered by their 
friends, or the principle involved had 
come up in their own thoughts without 
producing any deep or lasting impression. 

Books which treat of spiritual matters, 
and have for their object to enlighten and 


240 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


guide the soul, are to be used with certain 
precautions, especially by those who are 
under the influence of ignorance, doubt, 
scrupulosity, or any undue religious ex¬ 
citement. A few practical hints touching 
this important subject will not be out of 
place, particularly for the classes of persons 
alluded to. I shall write them down not 
in the hope that all may suit the case of 
every reader, but that one or two of them 
may throw some light on his path and help 
him to think. 

1. A spiritual book may do very good 
service to your neighbor, and may not suit 
you. Do not, then, take his author for 
your guide, unless you are sure that your 
neighbor’s case and your own are exactly 
the same. 

2. You are sure that it is the will of God 
that you should be guided by the advice 
of your Director ; you are not sure that it 
is His will that you should be guided by 
your reading of any spiritual treatise. 


BOOKS. 


241 


3. A book speaks to hundreds, or per¬ 
haps thousands, while your Director speaks 
to you personally, on your own special 
case. 

4. A work written to instruct religious 
souls in the way of perfection, may or may 
not be useful to the beginner in the service 
of God. Again, a work written to rouse 
the sinner from the lethargy of mortal sin, 
may, under certain circumstances, be use¬ 
ful to a soul which is being trained in the 
ways of perfection, or the reading of it may 
have a disturbing and injurious effect. 

5. Even a Saint may have written what 
suited his age, country, and people, and 
what, nevertheless, may not suit you, be¬ 
cause you are of an age, a country, and a 
people, for which he did not write. The 
medicine is good, but the fact that he pre¬ 
scribed it for one patient, does not prove 
that he would prescribe it for another un¬ 
der entirely different circumstances. 

6. Any book that renders you singular 

16 


242 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


and eccentric, that disturbs and discourages 
you, that stimulates and whets your curi¬ 
osity, that makes you dissatisfied, unhappy, 
and restless, is, in nine cases out of ten, 
useless or injurious to your spiritual wel¬ 
fare. 

7. Books of private devotion, or such as 
set forth rules for confraternities, organized 
charities, stated prayers, fasts, and observ¬ 
ances, always presuppose the strict and 
faithful observance of the commandments 
of God and of the Church, and the earnest 
discharge of the duties of your state in life. 
Without such strict and faithful observ¬ 
ance, all the advice this class of books give 
you, can lead to nothing. 

8. Handle with caution all religious 
works that deal in sensations, startling as¬ 
sertions, visions, revelations, and miracles 
of modern date. 

9. Lay aside books of religious contro¬ 
versy, if you discover in them a spirit of 
bitterness, if they deal in personalities, or 


BOOKS. 


243 


in angry, contemptuous, and uncliaritable 
language. 

10. It is not tlie quantity of matter you 
read that will do you any good. A book 
is useful if it fixes its thoughts clearly in 
your mind, and still more so if it teaches 
you to think correctly for yourself. Other¬ 
wise your reading may occupy and enter¬ 
tain you for the moment, but will lead to 
no useful results. 

These are a few hints to prevent your 
making mistakes in the use of pious books. 
For further guidance, consult your common 
sense, your enlightened conscience, and the 
paternal counsels of your wise Director. 


244 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


« 


CHAPTER XLIY. 

EDUCATION. 

The subject of Education is one which 
humbles, puzzles, and often saddens any 
large-hearted man, who loves his fellow- 
men, and who seeks to make them happier 
and better than they are. We cannot help 
thinking, when we are first brought into 
contact with misery and vice, that if we 
enlighten the intellect of the poor and 
faulty, refine their tastes, open their eyes 
to the softening and love-inspiring influence 
of the beautiful nature which surrounds 
them, and enrich their understandings with 
a knowledge of the sublime teachings of 
Religion,—we cannot help thinking that 
they must and will become good citizens, 
good neighbors, and well-conducted men 
and women. And yet, when we have sue- 


EDUCATION. 


245 


ceeded in carrying out all our theories, we 
are reduced to the sad necessity of acknowl- 
edging that intellectual culture alone does 
not produce the plenary fruits which we 
desire. When we break down ignorance, 
we do well, but we have then overthrown 
the outworks only of the dreary fortress of 
vice, and much more remains to be done 
before we can be satisfied with the people 
for whom we are working. 

Far be it from me, as a Catholic moralist, 
to have any quarrel with scientific culture. 
I am perfectly willing to confess, that 
merely intellectual religious culture, viz. : 
the purely theoretical knowledge of the 
principles of Religion and their history, is 
not apt to regenerate man and society, any 
more than the purely scientific culture of 
the human understanding. What is re¬ 
quired, beyond mere intellectual culture, 
whether scientific or religious, is moral 
education—the culture of the heart of 
beings who act fifty times oftener under 


246 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


the impulse of feeling than they do at the 
suggestion of cool thought. 

Man has a mind that lays before him 
rules of decorum, propriety, and moral 
action, but he has also a hot and violent 
will, which propels him forward to sudden 
and rash action. If you educate his mind 
only, you teach him how to think, but if 
you wish to teach him how to act, you 
must also educate his will; you must pro¬ 
vide curbs and checks, spurs and incen¬ 
tives, that will be ready at all times, and at 
a moment’s notice, to push him forward 
when he is inclined to be sluggish and in¬ 
active, or to hold him back when he is 
eager to rush furiously into action. 

I hope I have given a clear enough idea 
of what is meant by moral education. 
Depend upon it, dry sermons, religious 
tracts, and psalm-tunes, although useful, it 
may be, in their place, are not enough to 
accomplish what is required—that is, to 
chain the busy demon of passion, ever on 


EDUCATION. 


247 


the eye of an outbreak, and to force and 
drag unwilling and heavy human nature to 
act acording to the high standard of natural 
justice and Christian purity. 

These things being understood, the mo¬ 
mentous question arises, who is the proper 
moral educator of those who, with more or 
less of scientific education, are to become 
members of society ? 

Modern legislation, and social and indi¬ 
vidual benevolence have put in action 
many agencies for the purpose of bringing 
moral education up to the point which 
scientific education has undeniably attained 
in modern times. The School has been 
looked to by many governments for this 
excellent result, leaving Religion out of 
the question altogether. Religious de¬ 
nominations have taken up the problem, 
with a seriousness and sternness of pur¬ 
pose that threw aside the influence of 
the schoolmaster and the school. Others, 
again, have opposed education by the State, 


248 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


and in many parts of the world have united 
themselves together with great earnestness 
and generosity, taxing their private means 
to combine scientific and moral education, 
and religious training together. The sys¬ 
tem thus preferred is partial to no educa¬ 
tion that does not blend religious teaching 
with all other kinds of training, and make 
it, in fact, paramount to them all. Theo¬ 
retically, this would seem to be the safest 
system. There are persons who criticise it 
as having some drawbacks and disadvan¬ 
tages, among which they allege these two : 
1st, That it either turns lay teachers into 
teachers of religion, or allows no one to 
instruct the young in the sciences, unless 
those whose real business it is to teach 
religion. 2d, That it isolates the young in 
special parties, and fails to prepare them 
for the fife they will have to lead, or to 
accustom them in any way to the compan¬ 
ionship of those with whom they have to 


EDUCATION. 


249 


be constantly mixed np and associated, 
immediately after their education is oyer. 

It is not our object to examine systems 
of education, or to decide on tlieir com¬ 
parative merits. The point we are anxious 
to make is, that moral education must be 
given, if we are to have moral men and 
women for members of society, for men do 
not grow in morality naturally and spon¬ 
taneously as they grow in bulk and 
weight. In addition, we affirm that the 
divinely appointed institution for the moral 
training of youth is not the school, nor the 
Church, but the Home, the Family. The 
teacher and the Priest may assist, may 
teach the teacher and train the trainer, and 
may do their best to supply the absence of 
parents in exceptional cases; but, it is 
much to be feared, that if the father and 
mother neglect their duty or fail to fulfil 
it, no other agency, no matter how earnest 
and willing, will be able to supply their 
want, unless very imperfectly. 


250 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


The moral education of a child must 
begin in the cradle—he must be taught 
his first lessons in the difference between 
good and evil before he learns to walk; he 
must receive certain impressions, and be 
restrained in certain regards, before he can 
talk to his teacher or his Priest, or under¬ 
stand them when they talk to him. 

There is an unwritten and unspoken 
catechism which a child must know by 
heart, before he begins the study of the 
Catechism of the Church, and unless he 
has learned the first, there is little chance 
that he will ever properly learn the 
second. 

Education, in fine, is not the end of life, 
it is a means towards the end of learning 
how to live. Educational institutions are 
useful and well-regulated when they teach 
a boy or a girl to become a man or a 
woman, fitted to move in the sphere of life 
in which they will find themselves when 
the term of their education is over. Any 


EDUCATION. 


251 


system of teaching that unfits one or even 
does not fit him, to discharge intelligently, 
worthily, and usefully, the duties of the 
condition or state in which God has placed 
him in this world, is evidently defective, 
and needs either to he reformed, or to he 
replaced hy some other system.* 


* See Chapter XLIX. and its continuation, where these 
principles are treated at greator length. 


252 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

LAWS OP HEALTH. 

The world reaches our soul through the 
body, and our soul reaches the world 
through the body also. If the body is in 
good health and harmony, the impressions 
which pass through the senses will be like 
the rays of light which pass to and fro 
athwart a pane of pure crystal, but if the 
body be out of order it will act as cracked 
or stained glass, distorting and coloring the 
clear light in its passage back and forth, 
and conveying false impressions and re¬ 
ports. The body which we wear is given 
to us by Almighty God, as an instrument 
for serving Him and saving our souls. 
We have no right *to abuse it, to maim, 
injure, or defile it; and if we forget this, 
we not only injure our own happiness, but 


LAWS OF HEALTH. 


253 


we break His law and offend Him. He 
who disregards the laws of health is sure 
to suffer in consequence, even perhaps the 
penalty of death itself. 

There are many who, when they labor 
under acute suffering, or discomfort and 
weakness which they have brought on 
themselves by breaking the laws of health, 
have recourse to supernatural means in the 
hope of recovery. God can do all things, 
and by the use of whatever means He 
pleases. Accordingly, prayer may cure a 
fever; sacramental strength may cure the 
body weakened by ignorant or wilful dis¬ 
regard of health ; the intercession of the 
Blessed may repair damages done to the 
mind through aggravated disorder in the 
bodily functions; a flow of blood may be 
healed by touching the hem of the garment 
of the Perfect One; and chronic infirmity 
may be driven away by the shadow of the 
Prince of the Apostles falling upon the 
withered form of the sufferer. But these 


254 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


instances are exceptions to the rule, and 
God has given no man the right to expect 
them, or to put his hope in their recur¬ 
rence. 

But, leaving miraculous interposition 
aside, it is hoth the duty and the interest 
of all to hold to those agencies which pre¬ 
vent and ward off disease, and keep man 
sound in body and mind, ready at all times 
to serve his God and his neighbor. These 
are temperance in the use of meat and 
drink, cleanliness of person and apparel, 
moderation in work and thought, control 
and subjection of the passions and appe¬ 
tites, avoidance of exhaustion and fatigue, 
purity of body and soul, and an allowance 
of sufficient repose. 

Religion recognizes the sacredness of the 
natural laws which God established for the 
regulation of health. How could she, in 
fact, neglect or ignore a condition of things 
so intimately interwoven with the moral 
order \ Body and soul are intimately 


LAWS OF HEALTH. 


255 


united together, and so are their mutual 
cares and concerns. Venial sin is the 
sickness of the soul, and mortal sin is its 
death. Bodily illness is in most cases the 
result of sin, and in numberless instances 
sin and ignorance, and all manner of evil 
dispositions are caused or aggravated by 
the sufferings of the body, or the wretched 
conditions of its being. 

In accordance with this view, the wis¬ 
dom of revealed Religion teaches us to 
practise the corporal works of mercy, while 
we are mainly intent on fulfilling the 
spiritual and higher charities. We are 
taught to visit the sick and relieve their 
sufferings, if we have the skill or the 
power to do so. We are sent to the poor, 
the imprisoned, the naked, the hungry, 
and taught to clothe their shivering bodies, 
and give them sustenance and liberty, so 
as to put them in a fit condition to attend 
to their duty of serving God and their 
neighbor. 


256 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Again, while the voice of the Church 
arouses with trumpet tones of alarm the 
soft and luxurious followers of worldly 
ease, and bids them do penance and pre¬ 
pare, by fasting and prayer, against the 
wrath of the judgment to come, she excepts 
from the observance of her seasons of mor¬ 
tification and penitential austerity, the 
young, the ailing, the infirm, and those 
whose labor is of an exhausting character, 
all, in short, who could not comply with 
the ordinance unless by endangering their 
bodily health. Austerities, in fact, which 
cannot be practised unless by violating 
the laws of health are pronounced unac¬ 
ceptable in the presence of God. 

If it is reprehensible to injure one’s 
health even in so holy a cause, how mis¬ 
guided are those persons who from vanity, 
or the gratification of the passions and the 
senses, throw away so precious a gift of 
God, shortening their days by their own 
folly! It has been said that the human 


LAWS OF HEALTH. 


257 


anatomy is a hymn of praise to its Creator. 
We may add that it is jarring and discor¬ 
dant when its harmony is arrested or 
broken by ill health, and never so full and 
glorious as when the life-utterance of a 
sound mind is served and supported by 
the accompaniment of a sound body. 

17 


258 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS. 

The present century is remarkable for 
the great contest which has been waged 
between these two rival theories, more 
particularly as men of all parties have en¬ 
deavored to think and write down their 
favorite plans before working them out in 
practice. The contest must go on indefi¬ 
nitely with more or less animation between 
the advocates of the old and the new, the 
admirers of the past and the worshippers 
of the future, the timid and the venture¬ 
some, the far-seeing and the unreflecting, 
the prudent and the thoughtless, the 
steady supporters of established order, 
vested rights, and the powers that be, and 
the seekers for change, reform, and innova¬ 
tion. There is one lesson the man of the 


CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS. 259 

nineteenth century should have learned 
from the age in which he lives, no matter 
what side he may espouse, and that is to 
recognize the fact that there are very many 
honest, upright, able, and unselfish men 
in the ranks of the party opposed to his 
own. 

Those men who are intolerant and ex¬ 
treme in this century may claim the credit, 
such as it is, of starting the fierce and 
frequent revolutions of our day, but they 
are rarely found among the workers who 
bring back peace and security to the body 
politic. They may have invented and 
applied the severe measures of repression 
which silence opposition by stifling it for 
awhile, but they do not know how to 
remove the causes of disturbance, or 
remedy the evils that are justly com¬ 
plained of. 

Measures that have for their whole 
scope and bearing the social or political 
interests of men are matters of expediency, 


260 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


haying a contingent importance only. 
They are means towards an end, and 
though good in tliemselyes jhey may be 
useful to-day, and yet cease to be the 
best that can be done for to-morrow. 
They are the fruits of human reason, and 
proper subjects to be discussed by reason 
for adoption or rejection. Now whether 
the question be to preserve some institu¬ 
tion of this nature or to change it for 
another supposed to be better, I must be 
left free to form an honest opinion. By 
what right does either the opponent or the 
advocate of change claim from me an un¬ 
reasoning acquiescence that I owe directly 
to no one but God ? Surely by no right 
that I am bound to respect. He who is 
intolerant in reference to measures that de¬ 
pend upon his own judgment alone for their 
correctness, is pretty sure in enforcing them 
to defeat the very cause of which he ap¬ 
pears himself to be an advocate. What is 
established by brute force alone is sure to 


CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS. 261 


crumble by its own rottenness, or to fall 
before long beneath the blows of time. 

There is an ugly shape that casts its 
shadow athwart the most brilliant specula¬ 
tions of the political economist, whether of 
the old school or the new, viz.: the demon 
Abuse. How is the leader or his followers 
to be sure that in seeking to preserve 
what is old, he may not be preserving 
what at the same time has outlived its 
usefulness ? Let him who is not yet com¬ 
mitted to a party, study the case well in 
this light, and at all events determine that 
he will not allow himself to be forced to 
spend his powers in upholding that which 
is old only because it is old. 

How again can we be sure, without fear 
of error, that in advocating a change we 
are not introducing what will simply prove 
an additional abuse ? Let us act calmly 
and with reflection, and have sense enough 
at least not to support new things only 
because they are new. 


262 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


But as these chapters are dedicated to 
the service of Religion, the obvious and 
common-place remarks contained in this 
one would have no moral or point without 
the crowning reflection that her interests, 
consisting as they do of the glory of God 
and the salvation of souls, are too sacred 
and solemn to. be mixed up rudely with 
the transitory concerns of secular life. 
The man who has been trained up in the 
love and observance of religious principles 
will be honest and upright in his dealings 
with his fellow-men, whether in or out of 
the Church. He will love mankind for 
the sake of God, and cherish patriotism 
not as a stepping-stone to selfish aggran¬ 
dizement, but because it is a Christian 
virtue. 

Any union between politics and Religion 
beyond this is hurtful to him who seeks 
to bring it about, and further still, all past 
experience clearly proves that a man can 
do his Church no greater injury than by 


CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS. 263 


seeking to identify with her heavenly 
faith and mission, the petty interests of 
worldly life and the fleeting questions of 
te hour. 



264 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

AMUSEMENTS 

The man of the world is guid«d on the 
subject of amusements simply by his 
inclinations ; he indulges in pleasure if he 
feels like it, and if not he abstains. It is 
very evident that persons who wish to 
lead a virtuous life cannot leave so impor¬ 
tant a matter to be decided by caprice or 
the humor of the hour. They must have 
some rule to guide them. 

In establishing such a rule we must 
avoid too much stringency on the one 
hand, and too much leniency on the other. 
Those who are too severe especially with 
the young, looking with an eye of disap¬ 
probation even upon their innocent recre¬ 
ations, fail to display the humane and 
genial spirit of the Gospel of love. Those 


AMUSEMENTS. 


265 


again wlio are careless, and who see no 
harm in idle pastimes of any kind, expose 
immortal souls to temptation and serious 
spiritual danger. 

In order to strike the golden mean, we 
say that no amusement should be encour¬ 
aged unless it is of a nature to improve 
those who engage in it. If it is bodily 
recreation it must improve the body, giving 
it the advantage of exercise or rest. We 
naturally connect exercise with the idea of 
fresh air, grassy fields, the joyous laugh, 
the ruddy health, and the innocent sports 
of childhood. What better means than 
these to ward off the temter, and sweep 
from the brain the dark f and brooding 
thoughts that flee before a contented mind 
and a lively flow of healthful animal 
spirits? Nothing can be better for this 
good purpose. Physical training in fact is 
a necessary part of education, and without 
it we shall meet but seldom that cheering 
sight—a sound mind in a sound body. 


266 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


Where rest is needed, give the worker 
surcease of toil or of study. The quiet 
walk by a winding river, the favorite book 
in a rustic seat under a tree, a visit to some 
of the kingdoms of nature, and an inspec¬ 
tion of the wonderful treasures they contain, 
and other similar guileless occupations are 
not idleness, but means for recruiting and 
restoring powers overtaxed in the perform¬ 
ance of duty, and for acquiring strength to 
take up again and carry buoyantly onward 
the burden of life. 

Any amusement which is recommended 
as intellectual must be calculated to im¬ 
prove the mental faculties. The book, the 
play, the conversation, the painting, or the 
sculpture which should present a snare for 
the innocent, and suggest by design unbe¬ 
coming ideas, are no fit or lawful sources of 
amusement. They do not improve, but 
corrupt the soul of the unwary beholder. 

As a general rule, then, it is the duty of 
the Christian to condemn and reject any 


AMUSEMENTS. 


267 


kind of amusement which, is injurious to 
the health either of the body or of the soul, 
while he may lawfully patronize and en¬ 
courage such amusements as have no evil 
in themselves, and are, on the contrary, 
conducive to the moral and physical im¬ 
provement of those who share them. 


268 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

ACTIVE LIFE. 

Some people in this world make their 
Religion a science, some a romance, some a 
sentiment, some a torture, some a hobby, 
some a bugbear, some a vague theory, 
some a tierce partisan cry, some a cloak 
for vice, some a pretence to respectability, 
some a periodical and organized scheme of 
benevolence, some a bundle of meaningless 
forms, some a vision of antique story 
which they love, and some a superstitious 
remembrance of early impressions which 
they hate, and would get rid of if they had 
the daring to do so. 

Religion, thank Heaven, is none of these 
things, and none of these people place it in 
its true light. 

In spite of this, each one of these unfor- 


ACTIVE LIFE. 


269 


tunate visionaries congratulates himself on 
his success in making what he calls reli¬ 
gion work in as part and parcel of the 
scheme in which he is interested, or else 
complains because he cannot force it to 
subserve the ends he has in view. 

One who thinks he will be able to make 
his fortune if despotism prevails in the 
land will write, and preach, and work to 
drill and marshal the Clergy into the ser¬ 
vice of the successful soldier, who is the 
tyrant of to-day, and is probably destined 
to be the popular victim of to-morrow. 
Another, who wishes to inaugurate the 
reign of what he calls liberty, promises 
Mother Church long life and prosperity 
if she will commit herself to all manner of 
popular excitements and crude theories, 
and take the lead in all extreme measures, 
at the very time when the world stands 
most in need of repose, charity, and moder¬ 
ation. 

Then again comes the theorist with amia- 


270 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ble and kind-hearted feelings, but vague 
and uncertain thoughts, who quarrels with 
the Church because she will not commit 
herself in his way to the amelioration of 
the laboring classes and the suffering 
poor, and imitate what, according to his 
view, was the character of her Founder. 

There are many enthusiasts who would 
have the Church throw aside all her Chris¬ 
tianity, and limit her mission to a crusade 
in favor of some one virtue or perfection, 
that is, according to them, the panacea of all 
human ills, and the only thing man requires, 
whether in this life or the life to come. 

In our age, and be it said to the credit 
of our age, few men are idle and most men 
are very much in earnest! Those who are 
most in earnest, who are the leading enthu¬ 
siasts in the community, would wish to see 
the Church inflamed and spurred on by 
the special enthusiasm that inflames and 
spurs on themselves. She advocates and 
upholds all virtue, and consequently when 


ACTIVE LIFE. 


271 


the time and the fitting opportunity offers, 
she speaks in favor of whatever there may 
be of good in their theory too. Encouraged 
by this circumstance they would wish 
to get control of her great motive power, 
to force the human race into their pet 
scheme and the good which they suppose 
its general adoption would infallibly ac¬ 
complish ; and they are disappointed 
when she fails to be persuaded by what 
in their view of the case, are unanswerable 
arguments. 

Every one wishes to drag her to subser¬ 
viency in whatever fancied improvement 
he may undertake for the public good, and 
each and all signally fail in bringing about 
the unnatural alliance. 

The mistake made by all these enthu¬ 
siasts consists in this, that each one sup¬ 
poses the Church ought to take him for 
her guide, in order that things may be put 
straight in the world, when in reality the 
trouble all happens because they will not 


272 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


take the Church for their guide. Religion 
has not been established to serve as a 
public engine of reform, that every dreamer 
may put in motion to carry out his views, 
right or wrong. Religion is none of the 
partial or distorted theories we have been 
describing. 

What is Religion ? Religion is a life 
which we are to lead, and it embraces the 
quickening spirit within us that makes us 
live, the laws and conditions which regu¬ 
late our being, and our actions which are 
the result. It is an easy and simple thing 
within reach of all, and beyond the reach 
of none. It is not a matter of hard study 
for those who are in earnest. It is truth in 
action, directing us in prosperity and 
adversity, turning both our joys and our 
sorrows to profitable use, going along in us 
and with us from the cradle to the grave. 
Whoever has mind and will enough to be 
honest and in earnest, can obtain the gift 
of Religion by asking it with all his heart 


ACTIVE LIFE. 


273 


of Almighty God, who refuses His holy 
grace to none of His children. 

The best way to understand what it is to 
be a religious person is to begin at once, 
and live religiously ; to embrace and pro¬ 
fess the truth as soon as it is made known 
to us ; to fulfil earnestly our duty in life as 
soon as we understand what our duty is. 

18 


274 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 

The systems of literary and scientific 
education which are daily put forth, and 
recommended with more or less ability, 
are all experimental in their character. 
They are to be taken on trial, and the best 
that can be said for them is, that they may 
be an improvement on the past, and will 
perhaps lead to something less imperfect 
in the future. Whilst so much is written 
and said on the subject of education, we 
are continually reminded that it is a purely 
human work, in reference to which men’s 
minds are still confused and unsettled in 
spite of whole centuries of investigation 
and experience. When we treat of do¬ 
mestic education, we stand on firmer 
ground, and we ought to be able to reach 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 275 

conclusions satisfactory to the common 
sense of everybody. Home is an educa¬ 
tional institution prepared for the young by 
the providence of God Himself, for it is He 
who established the relations of the family. 
The school, the teachers, and the scholars, 
are in this case assigned their respective 
places by the very law of nature, and not 
by the wisdom or the caprice of society. 
The importance of home education, and 
the vast influence for good or evil which 
it exercises upon individuals, cannot for a 
moment be questioned. Adopting the 
division of our subject which has naturally 
presented itself, we will begin by making 
some remarks, in the first place, upon 
home as the school of domestic education. 

It is the oldest of all institutions. It 
precedes all aggregations of individuals, 
whether in a social or political point of 
view, both in the history of mankind and 
in the life of each man. From it, society 
receives its recruits, and in its walls dwell 


276 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


tlie boy wlio is the father of the man, and 
the girl who is the mother of the woman, of 
later days. The physical man is formed 
and trained gradually and insensibly in 
the family, the moral man receives from it 
the germs at least of his principles, preju¬ 
dices, and habits ; and although we com¬ 
monly give the credit of imparting knowl¬ 
edge exclusively to other schools, the 
greater part of the human race receive all 
the knowledge they possess in no school 
but this. Narrow as the foundation may 
seem, it is upon the family that Church and 
State, city and nation are built, and without 
it they would all cease to exist. 

God prepared and fitted the two individ¬ 
uals by whom the first household was 
formed, and from whom the first family 
sprang. It is the business of the Church 
and of society to prepare now those who 
will in time be heads of families. The 
Church has always paid special attention 
to this preparation, and has never allowed 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 


277 


any one rashly to assume the sacred obliga¬ 
tions of the married state. She has pointed 
out clearly the impediments which exist to 
marriage being happy, and has determined 
the circumstances when they shall act as a 
bar to the marriage contract, or when they 
shall at least delay its consummation. She 
has laid upon her ministers the obligation 
of seeing that the parties proposing to 
marry are sufficiently instructed to teach 
their offspring the chief principles and 
practices of religion. She commands it to 
be approached with all the gravity befit¬ 
ting one of her holiest institutions, and 
with the deliberation proper to a bond 
which death alone can sever. 

Is not much of the want of organization 
which we daily witness in families a con¬ 
sequence of the haste, levity, irrefiection, 
irreverence, wherewith young people rush 
into the married state? Are not the feel¬ 
ings of every pastor pained often by the 
thoughtlessness and improvidence of those 


278 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


among his people who, in place of submit¬ 
ting with docility to the wise requirements 
of the Church, seek to push their way dis¬ 
respectfully to the foot of the altar where 
irrevocable vows are to be pronounced ? 
Parties are allied together who have had nei¬ 
ther time nor fitting opportunity to become 
acquainted with each other’s dispositions ; 
,and sometimes avaricious fathers, oftener 
foolish mothers, insist upon their tastes 
and prejudices being the rule by which the 
selection of their children shall be guided 
in this most important step of their whole 
lifetime. Among the antecedent causes 
which give rise to ill-organized households, 
we must not fail to mention difference of 
religious belief. We are speaking of home 
as the school of domestic education. Now, 
supposing the best dispositions to exist on 
the part of the teachers, how can religious 
instruction be imparted by those whose 
views are radically different on the most 
important and fundamental principles of 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 


279 


thought and action ? The best result that can 
be hoped for is, that the one party, careless 
about the true religion or indifferent about 
all religion, will leave the matter of reli¬ 
gious training by word and example entirely 
in the hands of the other party. But even 
if this compromise be effected, it leaves the 
school only half organized ; it institutes a 
family which is to do its work in an abnor¬ 
mal manner, using only half the resources 
which it commands when all things are 
arranged as they should be in the house 
hold. 

Next to a home which is badly organ¬ 
ized, especially in the earlier period of its 
existence, that home must fail to produce 
good social results which is slighted and 
neglected by its members. Absenteeism 
on the part of landlords has been known 
to destroy the agricultural vitality of many 
a fair country, and absenteeism on the part 
of parents must bring about similar sad 
results in the home. The father of a 


280 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


family in onr midst is in the habit of going 
out early in the morning to business which 
is transacted in a distant part of the city. 
Frequently, at an hour somewhat later, 
the mother, haying completed her toilet, 
sallies forth for the better part of the day, 
which she spends in visiting, shopping, and 
promenading, while the children at home 
are left to be taken care of by the servants, 
or to take care of themselves. The family 
do not assemble again until late in the 
evening, and then in no lit condition for 
social and familiar intercourse. That great 
domestic institution, the family meal, does 
not exist; the occupations, amusements, 
and pursuits of each member being dif¬ 
ferent from those of the others, there is no 
reciprocal interest, no interchange of ad¬ 
vice, no comparing of notes, no mutual 
confidence, no assistance given or taken. 
If a move is made on the part of an indi¬ 
vidual, it is to get off from the dulness of 
home, and to seek some more congenial 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 


281 


sphere of enjoyment; and if all stir, it is 
to hasten away to some scene of public 
entertainment. 

The want of the home-feeling in this 
country has been frequently remarked, but 
it does not exist only in the breasts of 
those pioneers and rovers who take their 
way, like the Star of Empire, westward, 
and who will keep on that way until 
stopped by the waters of the Pacific Ocean. 
Among the people of our cities and towns 
as well, want of affection for home is a 
noticeable feature, and one which bodes no 
good for the future of society. As home 
loses its hold upon the hearts especially of 
the young, it loses its influence upon the 
formation of character, and ceases to be 
the school it was originally designed to be. 
Large numbers of our citizens are grad¬ 
ually getting to have no such thing as a 
home. They live in hotels and boarding¬ 
houses, eat in restaurants and at tables 
ffhote , send their children to be housed, 


282 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


fed, reared, and done for, at so much per 
head, in hoarding-schools, and never hear 
of home, unless it he in some work of 
kindly fiction, or some ludicrously inap¬ 
propriate ditty sung at the piano of the 
hotel parlor. One object of the foregoing 
remarks is to call attention to what seems 
to he forgotten hy some amongst us, viz., 
the importance, the necessity we may say, 
of home education, and the great evil of its 
omission. We see ways and means and 
institutions multiplied on every side for 
the development of man’s reasoning pow 
ers. But man is not composed of reason 
alone. He has other faculties which must 
he trained and developed as well as reason, 
in view of his future usefulness. He has 
emotions, tastes, feelings, impulses and 
biases, likes and dislikes, sympathies and 
antipathies, which require to he trained 
and governed, for they are the delicate 
materials out of which character is formed. 
He has what old philosophers called the 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 


283 


concupiscibile and the irascibile —he has a 
moral as well as an intellectual nature, he 
has a heart as well as a head. It is the 
home-school properly regulated that must 
educate his heart, else it will remain neg¬ 
lected and untrained, or be trained in the 
wrong direction, for the future misery of 
the individual himself and of society. The 
maxims and the practices by which the 
moral world of man is regulated, cannot be 
learned from books, or the professor of 
philosophy. The traditions, the examples, 
the gentle influences of home, must pre¬ 
cede the period when philosophy begins 
its sterner task ; and if the ground be not 
prepared beforehand, knowledge, reflec¬ 
tion, and even experience, come generally 
too late to produce any useful result. 

There are many homes which are but 
poorly organized, and where the blame 
cannot be fairly laid upon either head of 
the family. The man of business, the 
mechanic, and the daily laborer, are com- 


284 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


pelled to be absent nearly all day, by the 
system which has grown up among us, and 
frequently, by the force of similar circum¬ 
stances, the household is broken up, and 
its members scattered, from early morn 
until a late hour of the night. While such 
an arrangement may be regretted, it must 
be accepted, and we, therefore, must be 
satisfied with doing the best that can be 
done under the circumstances. But we 
call upon all to appreciate the importance 
of domestic education, and the greatness 
of the evils that must follow from its abuse 
or neglect. We call upon public instruc¬ 
tors of the people to cultivate and cherish 
what remains in audiences of affection and 
esteem for home, and not to aid and abet 
the exaggerated socialistic spirit of the age 
in destroying the last vestiges of so impor¬ 
tant an institution. Let parents do what 
they can towards correcting the evils which 
must be evident to them in their house¬ 
hold, since they themselves are the first to 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 285 

complain of them. However poor and 
narrow a home may be, and however 
humble the objects which fill it, young 
children love it as their home until they 
are led by outside influences to neglect it, 
or to be ashamed of it. Let parents, then, 
begin early to cultivate home attachments 
in the breasts of their children. Let them 
make their dwelling-place agreeable, as 
far as they have the power to do so, and 
try all they can to render it interesting to 
the younger members of the family. We 
believe that the Puritanical rigor which 
frowns down any species of amusement 
and innocent relaxation in many American 
homes, drives the young men especially to 
public places of entertainment, where bad 
associations and vicious habits are formed. 
It is, therefore, a question for parents to 
consider, whether they are not in part to 
blame for the eagerness which their chil¬ 
dren manifest to go away from home and 
spend their time in some circle less un- 


286 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


interesting, if less improving, than the 
domestic one is, or might be. Do not, we 
say to all, give np in despair all effort at 
reform in a point of such vital importance, 
but begin to effect what good, and remove 
what evil you can—and to show that you 
are in earnest, begin at once! 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 287 


CHAPTER L. 

DOMESTIC EDUCATION. —Continued. 

We now come to the second division of 
our subject—the teachers. One of the 
complaints commonly made by parents of 
their children who begin to grow up, is, 
that they will not submit to be controlled 
by their betters ; that they will not mind 
what is said to them. We hear it fre¬ 
quently said by the goodman of the house, 
or his wife, that it is harder to bring up 
children in this country than in any other ; 
and they seem to think that there is some¬ 
thing in the American atmosphere that 
disposes the young prematurely to in¬ 
dependence, and even insubordination. 
While sympathizing with those who are 
thus afflicted, we must quote the fact as an 
additional reason why they should be 


288 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


diligent and faithful in the discharge of 
their duties, and why they should study 
every appliance that is likely to aid them 
in discharging them. There is a time when 
they have entire control over their chil¬ 
dren, and when they must attend sedu¬ 
lously to the work of their domestic 
education, lest it soon become too late to 
attempt it with success. Do they ever 
reflect upon the power they exercise over 
their offspring in early youth ? Other 
legitimate authorities must use constant 
watchfulness and frequent force to check 
and hold in subjection the persons whom 
they are appointed to govern. Society has 
its police and its prisons for detecting and 
securing the unreasoning and unruly; 
royalty lias its thousands of bayonets and 
its hundreds of cannon charged with lead 
and “ villainous saltpetre;” and the 
Church herself must occasionally resort 
to spiritual pains and penalties, and invoke 
even the aid of the secular arm, to curb the 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 289 

evil-intentioned who are sowing discord, 
scandal, and immorality, in the midst of 
her people. 

But where is there an authority in the 
world so absolute on the part of the gov¬ 
ernment, so unquestioned on the part of 
the subject, as that of parents over their 
young children? The father may be a 
poor laborer, illiterate and uncouth, but 
his little boys look up to him as the 
greatest and wisest man on the face of 
the earth. There is nobody else’s father 
that in their estimation knows so much, 
or can do so many things so well, or 
is in any respect so great and brave and 
powerful as their own. He has more 
authority over his little children than king 
or president, the latter personages being as 
yet unknown to the budding citizen. His 
decisions are of more weight than those of 
the Supreme Court, for they are received 
as though absolutely infallible. In the 
face of danger even the boy who is led by 
19 


290 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


his father’s hand, and assured by his voice 
that there is nothing to fear, will walk 
unhesitatingly on, though it be to death 
itself. For all men under the law of 
nature, and for individuals even now, the 
parent is the first priest, and from this 
source we receive our first distinct ideas of 
the Godhead, and we learn the first words 
and rites by which He is honored and 
worshipped. The young child can see no 
woman in the world more beautiful, more 
lovely, more wise in all things, than its 
mother. Put it in the presence of a queen 
arrayed in gold and gems, and it will 
shrink back in terror, and cling for protec¬ 
tion to its mother’s gown. It never 
wavers for a moment in its allegiance, it 
relies implicitly upon her in all things, it 
trusts in her goodness as unalloyed, and in 
her power as unbounded. If it is hungry 
she can feed it, if it is fretful she can soothe 
it, if it is in danger she can save it, and if it 
is afflicted by sickness it would turn away 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 291 

from Benjamin Brodie, Astley Cooper, 
Galen, or iEsculapius liimself, feeling per¬ 
fectly assured that she can relieve its 
sufferings, and being only puzzled to make 
out why she does not do so at once. As 
for implicit reliance upon her word, it will 
not only accept what she says as true, but 
even subscribe to the statements made on 
delegated authority by nurse or house¬ 
maid, even when they assert the rather 
doubtful fact that the moon is made of 
green cheese, or that the bug-a-boo eats up 
little children in the dark. It is at this 
early period of life that parents must win 
the respect and confidence of their off¬ 
spring, and rear them up in the obedience 
which they wish to be preserved later in 
life. They have all power in their own 
hands, and they can mould with ease the 
character and disposition of their pupils in 
the Home School. If, through ignorance, 
they be unfit for this task, or if careless in 
its execution, they will have no right to 


292 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


complain later, when they fail to gather 
where they have not planted, and to reap 
where they have not sown. 

The reciprocal duties of parents and their 
children are so closely connected, that it is 
next to impossible for the latter to fulfil 
their share of the obligation if the former 
have neglected what is incumbent upon 
them. Furthermore, the obligations of a 
parent are so interwoven with all the rela¬ 
tions of his life, that he can hardly violate 
any moral duty habitually without injuring 
in some manner his children. All men, for 
instance, are bound by the law of God to 
avoid wastefulness and prodigality ; but if 
a parent be guilty of these faults, he sins 
also against the justice by which he is 
bound to obtain what is necessary for his 
children’s support, and preserve it for 
their present and future benefit. 

Ignorance on the part of parents is the 
source of much misery in families. Some¬ 
times it is ignorance of what a parent is 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 293 

really bound to do, and sometimes it is 
ignorance of tlie manner in which to do it. 
We are very far from requiring the knowl¬ 
edge of letters or science as indispensable. 
But we insist upon it that a mother must 
know how to manage the home at the head 
of which she is placed, and how to form, 
develop, and strengthen the character of the 
children she is bringing up. We insist 
upon it that a father must know the princi¬ 
ples of his religion, and be able practically 
to teach his children how to follow what 
they command, and avoid what they forbid. 
Children will manage somehow or other to 
grow up, physically speaking, for it is but 
rarely that any one dies of starvation in 
civilized communities. But we maintain 
that children will learn neither morals nor 
manners untaught. Some children are, we 
know, gifted with angelic dispositions, and 
take to what is good, and avoid what is evil, 
from hereditary bias or special favor of 
Providence. Even these rare specimens of 


294 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


a better kind of humanity require to be 
watched oyer carefully lest they deteriorate 
and become wicked, as very sweet wine be¬ 
comes very sour vinegar. But as a general 
thing, little children are little animals, and 
their natural tendency is to become worse 
still as they grow up. 

Medea saw the right and approved of it, 
yet pursued the wrong notwithstanding; 
these specimens of young humanity are 
prone to the wrong, and incapable of seeing 
by themselves why the right should be 
pursued in preference to the wrong. 

There are, to be sure, moral instincts 
and principles of right implanted in the 
reason of the child, and there is even, we 
majr add, the gift of faith received in the 
child’s soul at the baptismal font. But we 
must remember all these good things from 
above are mixed up like the four elements 
in chaos; there are as yet no rocks, no 
bones on which to construct a world ; the 
man exists, but he is earthly and sensuous, 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 295 

and all his superior qualities are smothered 
up in a mass of pulp and gristle. If he 
could speak and act with his present ten¬ 
dencies, he would scorn the idea of prefer- 
ing what is useful to what is pleasant, or 
sacrificing present indulgence for future 
advantage ; he would sell without a sigh 
a kingly birthright for a mess of pap, and 
remorselessly barter a noble and famous 
name for a pewter rattle, or a gingerbread 
horse. There is good in the child, to be 
sure, but it requires careful and skilful 
management on the part of parents to 
bring it out; and if they are ignorant of 
what parents ought to know, they will fail 
to do it, even with the best intentions. 

Ignorance is very far from being the only 
fault which grieves the Christian philoso¬ 
pher who would make it his study to im¬ 
prove domestic education. There are many 
parents who neglect their children with an 
in difference that seems almost incredible. 
It is easy to notice among a number of boys 


296 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


at school those who have careful mothers, 
and those who are neglected. There is a 
difference even in their countenances; for 
while the child of the former class is gentle 
and attentive, he of the latter has about him 
a hard or wild look, and a listlessness, or 
recklessness, that shows conclusively to an 
attentive observer, how little he expects to 
be kindly noticed, and how little he cares 
whether he is noticed or not. Poverty is 
the excuse brought up in defence of the 
neglectful mother. But let us once for all 
understand that poverty is not an excuse 
for uncleanliness of person; and in so far as 
clothing is concerned, poverty is a good ex¬ 
cuse for patches, but not for rags. Fathers 
too often do not care for their children, do 
not want to have them near, or to be annoy¬ 
ed by them. They take no interest in the 
things in which their children are concerned, 
they will not talk to them, they will not 
encourage them to ask for information, and 
in reply to their questionings they give 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 297 

simply an ungracious and curt answer, 
oftener attempting to shut the mouth of the 
youthful inquirer than to satisfy or enlighten 
his understanding. 

The result of this coarse treatment is, that 
the boy, seeing that his father will not talk 
to him, finds out somebody else that will. 
His amiable parent does not object to his 
running about the streets, and there falling 
in with associations which must cause his 
ruin, and each, perhaps, is rather pleased 
to be rid of the presence of the other. In 
every neighborhood there are nooks and 
corners where boys assemble together and 
exchange ideas on the subjects which they 
have at heart. 

Hot only do the children of the poor thus 
meet together, but often the better class too 
gather around some boy who is older per¬ 
haps than themselves, or* who is at least 
their superior in the games and exercises 
which boys are fond of. Outside the city, 
the place where boys meet, as men do in 


298 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


clubs and bar-rooms, may be a barn or 
a shadjr nook, or a bank by the river-side ; 
in the city, it is a stable, or the corner of a 
street, a lumber-yard, a vacant lot, or some 
sequestered part of the docks and piers. At 
these gatherings, the boys speak their mind 
freely, and question and answer each other 
without reserve, and here frequently those 
habits are formed, which, when discovered 
too late by parents, cause so much grief and 
alarm, namely, swearing, petty gambling, 
stealing, and all manner of obscenity and 
corruption. 

As a means of preventing these sad re¬ 
sults parents, and fathers especially, ought 
to be as well the friends and companions 
of their children. They ought to win their 
conlidence, or rather keep the confidence 
which, without any effort on their part, is 
in the beginning all their own. They 
should study the disposition and character 
of their children as it goes on unfolding 
day by day under their eye. They should 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 299 

know where their children spend their time, 
what company they keep, and how they 
are occupied and employed throughout the 
day. It is very easy to get from a hoy the 
history of the day which he has just passed, 
with his own observations and reflections, 
and casual remarks upon the nature of 
things and the character of the companions 
he has been with. He is always willing to 
talk of what occupies his own mind, and to 
receive the views of others thereupon, pro¬ 
vided he is only allowed to speak and 
consider his conversation as not uninterest¬ 
ing to his hearers. 

Will any parent object that such a sys¬ 
tem of domestic education as what is here 
implied would take up too much of his 
time and attention ? If he does, he little 
understands the importance of educating 
his children and preserving them from the 
early inroads of vice, and realizes but 
poorly indeed the strict account he will 
have one day to render of the manner in 


800 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


which he has discharged this duty, the 
most serious of all duties aside from the 
salvation of his own soul. 

It has been truly said, that we see the 
faults of others as if they were before our 
eyes; and our own as if they were behind 
our backs. This blindness in many pa¬ 
rents would seem to extend beyond their 
own persons, and to envelop in darkness 
the faults and the merits, the whole char¬ 
acter of their children. Parents are fre¬ 
quently the victims of real or pretended 
blindness in regard to the faults of their 
children, and they remain ignorant at 
times of bad conduct which is known to 
the whole neighborhood. They will take 
for granted the statement of daughter or 
son as to their whereabouts, during long 
evenings spent away from home, when any 
one of their acquaintances could tell them 
the whole truth, much to their grief and 
consternation. 

This blindness frequently amounts to 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 301 

a misjudgment of the whole character 
and disposition of children. One child is 
treated rudely, commanded to hold his 
tongue when he speaks, punished for the 
slightest fault or forgetfulness, put out of 
sight when visitors come to the house, left 
behind when the family goes out visiting, 
and, in short, always found to be in the 
wrong, and never by any lucky chance in 
the right. This is not unfrequently the 
very one of the family who possesses most 
spirit, or talent, or energy, and who only 
needs a different training to grow up a 
good and useful member of society. Mean¬ 
while another child is petted, and brought 
forward on all occasions, and while the 
other one gets all the cuffs, this one comes 
in for all the coppers. This one is always 
protected by one parent against the se¬ 
verity—the well-merited severity, perhaps, 
of the other—every thing he does is con¬ 
sidered beautiful, and every thing he says 
admirable, and by this means, he who is 


302 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


praised as a wit at fourteen, grows up to 
be a dunce at twenty-one. 

Nearly all the faults of parents in the 
management of their children may be sum¬ 
med up in the two extremes of excessive 
severity and excessive indulgence. The 
first is fatal to mutual kindness and confi¬ 
dence. There are very few children who 
may not be made to see the justice of cor¬ 
recting them when they have been wilfully 
or maliciously in the wrong. But, on the 
other hand, there is nothing so wounding 
or so injurious to the young as punishment 
which they know they have not deserved. 
If the well-known saying be quoted here 
by any parent about ‘ ‘ sparing the rod and 
spoiling the child,” we will simply remark 
that no one has a right to quote that saying 
who uses the rod at the impulse of anger. 
We have nothing to say against correction 
properly and judiciously administered— 
administered, not in a spirit of revenge, but 
really for the improvement of the offender. 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 303 

We rather aim our remarks at certain peo¬ 
ple who are habitually harsh and severe 
with their children; who freeze their 
young hearts, and crush their souls within 
them by the constant exercise of domestic 
despotism. There are such hard men in 
every community, and there are mothers 
too who, by step-dame rigidity and ceaseless 
unfairness of treatment, drive their daugh¬ 
ters at length to wish they were dead in 
their graves, in the hope of finding peace 
there, or perhaps to seek for peace in the 
home of a stranger. 

No less injurious is the fault of excessive 
indulgence. We have said before that chil¬ 
dren have appetites and passions which 
they must be taught to curb and control. 
They must begin to learn at an early age 
that self-denial is one of the very first and 
most indispensable principles of Christiani¬ 
ty, and of all true greatness. It is only 
weakness, or false or foolish affection, that 
will induce parents to give the young child 


304 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


its own way in all tilings. It is their duty 
to examine carefully what is for the child’s 
true interest, to form a judgment and abide 
by it, in spite even of remonstrances, 
whining, and tears. Let every parent 
remember that a spoiled child is sure to 
grow up selfish, and therefore heartless, 
and that no one is more certain of suffering 
in consequence than the parent by whom 
the child was spoiled. Flattery is one of 
the means of spoiling a child, familiarity 
and want of dignity is another, and a third 
is that bane of domestic peace, partiality 
towards one particular child at the expense 
of the others. 

We have spoken thus far of households 
where the teachers of the domestic school- 
house are more or less uninformed, ineffi¬ 
cient, or faulty, but where they are 
persons, nevertheless, who deserve in some 
measure the honorable appellation of 
teachers. What shall we say of parents 
who are of decidedly bad principles and 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 305 

conduct, who give to their children no 
example except such as is calculated to 
lead them to destruction ? Here, indeed, 
an opportunity is afforded for the denun¬ 
ciations, the carmina et vce, of a prophet* 
or the stirring eloquence of a holy father 
and doctor. Here let the voice of the 
zealous pastor he heard speaking as with 
authority and grace from on high, in the 
pulpit, in the confessional, and in his daily 
walks among his people, for he alone has 
power to reach the dreadful evil, and to 
cure it wholly or in part. It is our 
province merely to call attention to the 
fact, that while the Church and the school 
may fortunately prevent many sad conse¬ 
quences in cases where this great evil 
exists, they do not and cannot relieve 
parents of the obligation to bring up their 
children in the knowledge and service of 
God, and to give them all possible aid, 
physical, moral, and religious, proper to 
their state and condition in life. 


306 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTEE LI. 

DOMESTIC EDUCATION.— Continued. 

We now enter upon the last part of our 
subject, and have to speak of the scholars, 
in what we term the school of domestic 
education. The crowd composed of these 
scholars is as an army advancing upon us 
who now compose society, possess all its 
advantages, and fill all the places, high or 
low, which are in its bestowal. We are 
the people. for whom governments and 
laws exist, cities stand organized, courts 
are opened, the rites of religion are cele¬ 
brated, the custom-house and the mer¬ 
chant’s exchange are organized and in full 
operation. We are the people for whom 
scientific enterprises are undertaken, for 
whom steamboats and railway trains are 
ever ready to take up and carry their 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 307 

living freight to its destination, unless they 
happen to blow it up, or sink it down on 
the road. For us kings reign, soldiers 
shoulder their arms, lawyers unroll their 
briefs, merchants post their ledgers, authors 
starve in garrets, and newspaper editors 
regulate the universe. Do we ever reflect 
that the crowd above spoken of is tread¬ 
ing on our heels, urging us along, and 
gradually taking the places which we have 
considered so particularly and emphati¬ 
cally our own ? It seems strange, and yet 
it is nevertheless true,, that in a few years 
we—all of us—who are professional men, 
merchants, mechanics, laborers, or idlers, 
will be all quietly put under the sod, and 
that there will be plenty of professional 
men, merchants, mechanics, laborers, and 
idlers, and yet we shall be neither wanted 
nor missed. 

This is not all, but it is admitted on 
every side that one of our chiefest duties 
is to prepare our youthful successors for 


308 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


performing worthily and conscientiously 
the duties of the various stations to which 
they will succeed. The questions accord¬ 
ingly arise: What are they learning % 
How are they being formed and trained \ 
Where do they pass their time, and by 
what sort of influences are they governed ? 
All may be summed up in the question 
which every parent should be able to 
answer: What is the true character of my 
child, and by what means and in what 
manner is that character developing and 
shaping itself as he grows up % Now, 
whatever difficulties may surround the 
social position of the family, we venture 
to say, that if both parents have been 
good Christians, faithful in the practice of 
their religion, and if they have done what 
rested with them by their offspring during 
the period of infancy and childhood, they 
may look forward with hope to the riper 
period of early manhood or womanhood, 
which their young people are fast ap- 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 309 

proaching. If the early influences of the 
home-school and of religion haye been 
unapplied, inoperative up to the dangerous 
age when the passions are strongest and 
reason and experience weakest for good, 
then a glance into the future must cause, 
not despair indeed, hut at least well- 
grounded and grave apprehension. 

The family and the home are powerful 
agencies for forming the mind, the heart, 
the head, and the conscience, the whole 
character of children. But if this great in¬ 
stitution, we repeat, during the first eight, 
ten, or fourteen years of child-life has been 
in a state of disorganization, if one parent 
has been busy in undoing or counteracting 
the good attempted by the other, or if 
daughter and son have been, through 
whatever cause, influenced by it only for 
evil—or not influenced at all, who is to be 
blamed for the evil results, or the no-re¬ 
sults, which become at last but too evident 
and alarming? Certainly not the home- 


310 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


school itself, hut the causes which have 
perverted or paralyzed its action. 

And next as to Religion. Is she to he 
found fault with because a had state of 
things exists where her teachings, her 
examples, her thousand beneficent, exalt¬ 
ing, and refining influences, have not been 
brought to bear on youth, but where, on 
the contrary, ignorance, neglectfulness, bad 
example, and every diabolical agency has 
been allowed to usurp the time and the 
place where she ought to have reigned 
supreme 1 Who can enumerate the crowd 
of baneful influences which, at the period 
we have now come to consider, threaten 
youth as it emerges into a broader and 
freer world ! There are newspapers, some 
of thorn sickly and sentimental, that injure 
the brain which they weaken and distem¬ 
per. There are flash publications, con¬ 
sisting of light, fictitious matter, which 
encourage habits of idleness and indolence, 
whilst they do still more harm by filling 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 311 

the mind with wanton images and the heart 
with unholy desires, fostering and stretch¬ 
ing the imagination at the expense of the 
other mental faculties, developing early 
the passion of love, and creating perverted 
and exaggerated erotic tendencies which 
Nature never intended to satisfy. Then 
there are low associations, and vulgar 
places of amusement, obscure theatres, 
dancing-houses, and the unhealthy and 
demoralizing resorts where the first lessons 
are given and taken in intemperance, 
gambling, and petty thievery. 

The practice of that manly, healthful, 
and ennobling art of swimming becomes, in 
numerous instances, the occasion of many 
sinful habits among boys who indulge in 
it by stealth around the docks of cities, 
generally against the wish or without the 
knowledge of their superiors, and quite 
commonly in combination with truancy 
from the school or the workshop. 

What more rational and innocent than an 


312 SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 

escape during the fiery summer months 
from the city to the coolness, the shade, 
and the pure air of the country ? And yet 
who needs to he told that similar excur¬ 
sions, when gotten up under improper 
auspices, or when poorly officered and ill 
regulated, are fraught with many dangers 
both to body and soul, and eyen become 
the occasion of a first fatal acquaintance 
with sin, shame, and life-long misery! 
Woe be to the child whose parents awake 
to a knowledge of these sad evils only 
after they have left their degrading mark 
on the soul of youth, who discover the 
wound only when it has begun to fester! 
The evil might have been prevented, the 
occasion of sin might perhaps have ap¬ 
proached and passed by without injury, 
had prudent foresight and proper vigi¬ 
lance guarded unwary innocence. Now 
the evil is done, and it is often the case 
that the experience which teaches crime, 
makes the boy a man. It is too late to ask 


i 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 318 

now what rules for training youth are to 
be applied to the victim. He must be 
dealt with on the broad principles by 
which grown men are led to abandon vice 
and return, with God’s assistance, to the 
practice of virtue. He has a head to be 
reasoned with, and a heart to be appealed 
to. It would be a mistake to treat him as 
a child any longer. You cannot withdraw 
him from vicious habits by ignoring vice, 
or by attempting to keep it out of sight. 
Should you venture to browbeat or to 
threaten the offender, to drive him like a 
dumb animal, in place of persuading and 
convincing him like a man, you will have 
your trouble for nothing, and probably be 
laughed at into the bargain. 

We must be understood here as making 
a distinction which might be more frequent¬ 
ly acted upon, even by those who have a 
very fair knowledge of the principles of 
moral theology. It is the distinction be¬ 
tween acts and habits. A child often stum- 


314 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


bles into the commission of a sinful act 
without full deliberation, but rather from 
curiosity, or by accident, or on account of 
some evil example witnessed perhaps with¬ 
out design on his part. The harm done to 
the soul of the offender may often appear 
greater than it really is, under such circum¬ 
stances. A simple admonition on the part 
of his kind adviser, or even judicious paren¬ 
tal correction, or an appeal to his fears, may 
be all that is required to prevent a repetition 
of an act, which he sees plainly grieves his 
best friends, and must be injurious to him¬ 
self. The tones of alarm we here speak in, 
are caused by the repetition of acts and 
the formation thereby of sinful habit. 
Here great loving-kindness, united with 
great firmness, are required on the part of 
an enlightened parent or adviser. In early 
years the habit may be one of a lighter 
sort, gluttony perhaps, peevishness, rude¬ 
ness, or venial disobedience. Somewhat 
later, acts are committed, and repeated 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 315 

more frequently, and with less and less of 
remorse and shame,—lying, quarrelling, 
stealing, profanity, and that dread enemy 
of moral worth and intellectual growth, 
youthful impurity. Here the wise parent 
must imitate the action of the holy spiritual 
physician, who watches carefully the his¬ 
tory laid before him by his penitent, and 
passing gently over single and insulated 
acts that do not threaten repetition, he 
fastens firmly on the chief and predominant 
habit of the soul’s life. He enlightens the 
youthful mind upon the heinousness of 
this habitual failing, he points out its evil 
consequences, he stirs up the fear of God, 
and compunction, he calls forth firm reso¬ 
lutions against the besetting sin and its 
occasions, and he invokes special grace 
and guardianship from on high, that his 
spiritual child may break the half-formed 
chain, and never more be encumbered by 
its degrading fetters. 

Let not a prudent father or guardian for- 


314 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


bles into the commission of a sinful act 
without full deliberation, but rather from 
curiosity, or by accident, or on account of 
some evil example witnessed perhaps with¬ 
out design on his part. The harm done to 
the soud of the offender may often appear 
greater than it really is, under such circum¬ 
stances. A simple admonition on the part 
of his kind adviser, or even judicious paren¬ 
tal correction, or an appeal to his fears, may 
be all that is required to prevent a repetition 
of an act, which he sees plainly grieves his 
best friends, and must be injurious to him¬ 
self. The tones of alarm we here speak in, 
are caused by the repetition of acts and 
the formation thereby of sinful habit. 
Here great loving-kindness, united with 
great firmness, are required on the part of 
an enlightened parent or adviser. In early 
years the habit may be one of a lighter 
sort, gluttony perhaps, peevishness, rude¬ 
ness, or venial disobedience. Somewhat 
later, acts are committed, and repeated 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 315 

more frequently, and with less and less of 
remorse and shame,—lying, quarrelling, 
stealing, profanity, and that dread enemy 
of moral worth and intellectual growth, 
youthful impurity. Here the wise parent 
must imitate the action of the holy spiritual 
physician, who watches carefully the his¬ 
tory laid before him by his penitent, and 
passing gently oyer single and insulated 
acts that do not threaten repetition, he 
fastens firmly on the chief and predominant 
habit of the soul’s life. He enlightens the 
youthful mind upon the heinousness of 
this habitual failing, he points out its evil 
consequences, he stirs up the fear of God, 
and compunction, he calls forth firm reso¬ 
lutions against the besetting sin and its 
occasions, and he invokes special grace 
and guardianship from on high, that his 
spiritual child may break the half-formed 
chain, and never more be encumbered by 
its degrading fetters. 

Let not a prudent father or guardian for- 


316 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


get the great assistance he may derive from 
proper and healthful physical and mental 
exercise. Let him correct the dangers of 
evil association, not by trying to keep his 
children separated altogether from the so¬ 
ciety of those who are of their own age, but 
by encouraging association with those who 
are good, and who have virtuous parents 
to watch over them. It is necessary that 
parents should study the character of the 
friends of their children as well as that of 
the children themselves; and if they possess 
the happy faculty of feeling young again in 
the company of the young, and taking part 
in their amusements, they will find that they 
will always be welcomed with joy and 
pride by those whom they honor with their 
companionship. The subject of athletic 
sports and healthy exercise, and their great 
influence in forming the moral character, as 
well as in developing the physical frame of 
our youth, is too frequently overlooked in 
this country. One of the causes of this is 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 317 

that youths become men too soon, and one 
of the consequences is that they acquire 
the vices and diseases of men far sooner 
than they should or would do under differ¬ 
ent management. This is an evil that one 
can correct in his own family without wait¬ 
ing for the country at large to join him in 
his action. If he take the course that is 
wise and proper and approved of, in theory, 
at least, by all, he will ward off dyspepsia 
and nervous complaints from his children, 
and contribute to insure to each of them a 
sound mind in a sound body. 

The evil of precocity, to which we have 
already alluded, is complained of by many, 
and especially by those who were born 
abroad and whose children are natives of 
this country. The children, they say, grow 
too fast, and know at ten or twelve years of 
age what we only learned in Europe when 
we were twenty-five years old. They ape 
the manners of men, and copy their vices, 
and have none of that simplicity and sub- 


320 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


reality is a little village somewhere up the 
North River, or in the quietest parts of quiet 
New England, containing two or three 
hundred inhabitants, and a city containing 
a million of souls. 

It would be pleasant, no doubt, if the quiet 
and easy-going ways of good and simple, 
yet intelligent country people, could be pre¬ 
served amidst the rush and bustle, the din 
and roar of a gigantic commercial city. 
This, however, is impossible. The fact is 
before us, and we must accept it and do the 
best we can with it. The children must be 
educated and trained in spite of their pre¬ 
cocity, which means simply that we must 
begin the work of training them earlier, and 
.do it more thoroughly and more intelligent¬ 
ly, than we should be compelled to do were 
the material in our hands more easily 
kneaded and shaped to suit our wishes. 
The actual condition of the children will 
show whether the teachers are doing what 
is right, in so far as domestic education is 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 321 

concerned. Again, by carefully examining 
these teachers, their maxims and their hab¬ 
its, we shall find it very easy to conjecture 
what is the condition of their children. So 
also the condition of the home itself will 
enable us to judge of the condition of those 
who dwell in it. In this manner, by know¬ 
ing what the fruits are, we judge of the tree 
that produced them; and by knowing what 
the tree is, we can tell what sort of fruit it 
will produce. 

We have purposely avoided speaking of 
literary or scientific education, or of any 
training but the domestic. We are con¬ 
vinced, however, that all sensible persons 
will join us in classing among abuses to be 
corrected, all manner of education which 
unfits the young to live peaceably and con¬ 
tentedly in their own home. 

Education is a means, it is not the end 
of life. It is useful when it prepares and 
fits young persons to discharge intelli¬ 
gently and conscientiously the duties of 
21 


322 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


the position they will have to occupy when 
they come to he young persons no longer. 
In the professional world, a man ought to 
study medicine, and not law, if he wishes 
to he a doctor ; and he ought to study law, 
and not physic, if he is destined to he a 
lawyer. The child, then, who is expected 
to live in the home of its parents, should 
not he brought up to eat, and dress, and 
speak, and think, and, in short, to form 
hahits that will make life in that home im¬ 
possible without discomfort to all its in¬ 
habitants. The education which estranges 
a child from its home, or makes it ashamed 
of that home, does a still greater evil, it 
unfits the child in question for all homes 
of the same kind—for the whole neighbor¬ 
hood. In other words, education, by 
rendering a person unfit for his home, and 
his home unfit or distasteful for him, lifts 
him out of the class of society to which he 
and his people and his home properly 
belong. 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 323 

This is certainly the source of many 
evils which we all feel and regret. The 
extravagance in dress and living, which 
among us goes beyond the luxury of the 
oldest and wealthiest European capitals, 
is a consequence of everybody’s desire 
to appear better off than he really is. 
Each one in the social scale is trying 
to climb out of the class to which he 
belongs, and the general ambition is to 
climb into the next class above. The son 
is ashamed of the honorable labor or the 
decent trade by which his father earned a 
respectable support for himself and his 
family, and he aspires to a profession. If 
he possesses extraordinary energy and 
industry, and meets with unusual advan¬ 
tages, he sometimes succeeds, and is 
deservedly praised as a self-made man. 
But the more frequent result of this 
unclassing of individuals is, that whilst 
the class which is left loses one who might 
have distinguished himself as a mechanic, 


324 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


the class which is aspired to, receives one 
who is unfit to move in it, is probably 
only half-educated, and unprepared for the 
keen competition to which he is imme¬ 
diately exposed. How can this sad expe¬ 
rience contribute to the happiness of the 
individual, or to the good of society at 
large ? 

In order to avoid these unpleasant re¬ 
sults, let it be the aim of all engaged in 
bringing up the young, to educate them 
with reference to what they are to be and 
to do in after-life. And let no one force 
himself or be forced by others into a 
position for which he is unfit, and for 
which he cannot be fully trained and 
prepared. 

In conclusion, while we do not under¬ 
take to condemn schools, even when they 
are so arranged that the pupils board and 
lodge in them, we must be allowed to say 
that this is certainly not the best system of 
education for the young. The best system 


DOMESTIC EDUCATION, CONTINUED. 32 5 

is undoubtedly the one which Providence 
itself formed, in which the parents of a 
child attend to its physical training and 
jits moral education, whoever else may 
be engaged to instruct and develop its 
reason. Let the heads of schools, then, 
receive all the credit and respect to which 
they are entitled ; but let it be remem¬ 
bered that they are not the fathers or 
mothers of their pupils. Let the ad¬ 
vantages of boarding-schools and acade¬ 
mies be cheerfully admitted, but after all 
“ there’s no place like home.” 


326 


SPIKITUAL PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER LII. 

TIME AND ETERNITY. 


The lesson of Time and Eternity gives 
man the assurance that his spirit is stronger 
than all sorrows which may lay their bur¬ 
dens upon him, and enables him to say, 4 4 1 
live,” in spite of Death itself. 

In looking forward to death, we increase 
the terrors which surround the grim tyrant, 
by allowing our fancy to become excited. 
Death is not the greatest of evils, nor even 
the severest form of human suffering ; for a 
person may be tortured by a disorder that 
does not take away life, and again he may 
die with little pain, or even without pain 
at all. 

Death can reach only the body. The soul, 
being a pure spirit, has no elements that 
can fall apart and dissolve in corruption, 


TIME AND ETERNITY. 


327 


and there is no outside power strong 
enough to crush and destroy her, God 
haying promised to preserve her immortal. 
She cannot die nor he killed, with his iron 
hand, hut although he may dissever, modi¬ 
fy, and part it from the soul, yet he cannot 
destroy even the hody, for nothing perishes 
that God created. We shall go through a 
great change in death, hut not enough to 
take away our identity ; we shall still live, 
although under different conditions from 
what we do now. 

Religion teaches us to tread the path of 
life under the guidance of light from above, 
without yielding to gloomy forebodings in 
reference to its termination. If we under¬ 
stand the law of God, and honestly follow 
it, without taking from it by carelessness, 
or adding to it by superstition, we can 
walk unhesitatingly on, without fear of the 
end. We never honor God more than 
when we confide in His goodness, pro¬ 
vided we honestly do our own duty. 


328 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


We give greater glory to His name when 
we believe that we shall certainly be saved, 
than when we tremble at the constant 
recollection of hell, as if there were not 
Divine mercy enough to rescue us from its 
flames. Presumption is a great sin, for it 
is to hope without doing any thing as a 
reason for hoping ; but despair is as great a 
sin, for it is to refuse hope, in spite of all 
that God does in our behalf as a reason for 
hoping. An humble but unshaken trust 
in God’s mercy, and in His promises, is the 
proper frame of mind for a faithful Christian. 

Think of God frequently as the great 
Creator of Heaven and Earth, as the all¬ 
wise and all-powerful Iluler of the Universe 
which He created, as the Judge of the 
living and the dead ; but let the most ordi¬ 
nary form of the Divine Presence in your 
memory be that of your most loving and 
benign Father. 

It would be a sin were you to take it 
upon yourself to hold your salvation as 


TIME AND ETERNITY. 


329 


certain on account of any merit of your 
own ; but when you make up your mind 
that you are safe because you know and 
feel that you are in the hands of God, your 
trust is a good and holy thing. 

In the earliest and rudest ages, Religion 
presented God to ignorant and untutored 
generations as always holding a threatening 
attitude towards the sinner. The great sin 
of those ages was idolatry, and it was ne¬ 
cessary to keep alive in the minds of men 
the idea of God’s tremendous power, 
majesty, justice, and jealousy, to prevent 
weak and foolish humanity from falling 
down and worshipping the sun, the moon, 
the stars, the rushing winds, and the mur¬ 
muring waters, the marble statue, and the 
golden image. But mankind are out of 
their infancy now, and God appeals no 
longer to untutored fears, but to mind and 
heart enlightened by the noontide glory 
of Christian Revelation. 

The danger we now run is, that of hav- 


830 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


ing the word of God choked up by the 
thorns, which are the concerns and pleas¬ 
ures of this life—of feeling no interest in 
the salvation of our souls. 

The remedy for this danger is to remem¬ 
ber how much He loved us, and how many 
means of salvation He has prepared for 
those who love Him in return. 


FINIS, 



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